Chapter IX: Part III: Jerry and Eugene--And Joe (9)

"Three years ago I'd have left everything to him if I had been ready to make a will then. I'm ready now, and any time in the next ten years I can change it if I want to. But this will bring things my way, after all. I told York I'd never forgive Jerry!"

Mrs. Darby paused, and a smile lighted her wrinkled face.

"To think of that girl just shouldering her burden and walking off with it. If she isn't Brother Jim over again! Never writing a word of complaint. Oh, Jerry! Jerry! I'll make it up to you to-morrow."

To Jerusha Darby money made up for everything. She sat long in the rose-arbor, thinking, maybe, of the years when Jerry's children and her children's children would dominate the Winnowoc countryside as they of the Swaim blood had always done. And then, because she was tired, and the afternoon sunshine was warm, and her willow rocking-chair was very comfortable--she fell asleep.

<tb>

"Went just like her brother, the late Jeremiah Swaim," the papers said, the next evening.

Instead of the lawyer, it was the undertaker who came to officiate. And the last will and testament, and the too-late evidence of a forgiving good-will, all were impossible henceforth and forever.

The estate of the late Jerusha Darby, relict of the late Cornelius Darby, no will of hers having been found, passed, by agreement under law, to a distant relative of the late Cornelius, which relative being Eugene Wellington, whose knowledge of the said possible conditions of inheritance he had held in his possession for three years, since the day he accidentally found them among the private papers of his late uncle, knowing the while that any sudden notion of the late Jerusha might result in putting her possessions, by her own signature, where neither Jerry, as her favorite and heir apparent, nor himself, as heir-in-law without a will, could inherit anything. Truly Gene had had a bothersome time of it for three years, and he congratulated himself on having done well--excellently well, indeed. Truly only the good little snakes ever entered that "Eden" in the Winnowoc Valley in Pennsylvania.

XVII

THE FLESH-POTS OF THE WINNOWOC

The glory of that third springtime was on the Kansas prairies and in the heart of a man and a maid, the best of good fellows each to the other, who rode together far along their blossomy trails. The eyes of the man were on the future and in his heart there was only one wish--that the good-fellowship would soon end in the realization of his heart's desire. The eyes of the maid were closed to the future. For her, too, there was only one wish--that this kind of comradeship might go on unchanged indefinitely. To Jerry no trouble seemed quite so big when Joe was with her, and little foxes sought their holes when he came near. If the spring work had not grown so heavy late in May, and Joe could have come to town oftener, and one teacher had not fallen sick, and Clare Lenwell hadn't been so stubborn, and if Stellar Bahrr had held her tongue--But why go on with ifs? All these conditions did exist. What might have been without them no man knoweth.

One of the humanest traits of human beings is to believe what is pleasant to believe, and to doubt and question what would be an undesirable fact. Jerry Swaim, clinging ever to a memory of what might have been, building a pretty love dream, it is true, to be acted out some far-away time by a young farmer and his neighbor in the Sage Brush Valley, listened to Stellar Bahrr's version of Thelma Ekblad's shopping mission, held back the tears that burned her eyeballs for a moment, and then, being human, voted the whole thing as impossible, if not as malicious as any of Stellar Bahrr's stories. Indeed, Thelma Ekblad was now, as she had always been, the very least of Jerry's troubles.

The school row, that had become the community fuss, culminated in the superintendent putting upon his teachers the responsibility of settlement.

If they were willing to concede to the foolish demands of the class, led by Clare Lenwell, and grant full credits in their branches of study, he would abide by their decision. The easiest way, after all, to quiet the thing, he said, might be to let the young folks have their way this time, and do better with the class next year. They could begin in time with them. As if Solomon himself could ever foresee what trivial demand and stubborn claim will be the author and finisher of the disturbance from year to year in the town's pride and glory--the high-school Senior class, and its Commencement affairs. The final vote to break the tie and make the verdict was purposely put on Jerry Swaim, who had more influence in the high school than the superintendent himself. Jerry protested, and asked for a more just agreement, finally spending a whole afternoon with Clare Lenwell in an effort to induce him to be a gentleman, offering, in return, all fairness and courtesy.

Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average American high school enthralls and degrades--and so forth, world without end.

This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock P.M. to five o'clock P.M. of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an untroubled tone:

"You may as well go. Good afternoon."

Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour--until the next morning. Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits for graduation from all of the faculty--except one pupil, who lacked one teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher of the mathematics department.

The earthquake followed.

In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his remains never be recovered to his family."

It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to trial by her peers--the board of education. In this executive session, whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed--for York Macpherson would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that influential--_Other Things Were Made Known_--Things that, after the final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten.

Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip over her for three whole years.

Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a _serious_ character, and she was to be tried and condemned in _secret session_ and allowed to _leave_ the town _quietly_. _Nothing_ would be said _aloud_ until she was _gone_.

In despair, Ponk sought York Macpherson two hours before the trial began.

"There's two against me. And no matter what I _say_, they'll outvote me. It's the durned infernal ballot-box that's a curse to a free government. If it wasn't for that, republics would flourish. Bein' an uncrowned king don't keep a man from bein' a plain short-eared jackass--and they's three of us of the same breed--two against one."

York's face was gray with anger, and he clutched his fingers in his wavy hair as if to get back the hold on himself.

"You will have your trial, of course. Demand two things--that the accused and the accusers meet face to face. It will be hard on Jerry."

"Has she flinched or fell down once in three years, York Macpherson? Ain't she stronger and handsomer to-day than she was the day I had the honor to bring her up from the depot in that new gadabout of mine? If I could I'd have had it framed and hung on the wall and kept, for what it done for her."

The two men looked into each other's eyes, and what each read there made a sacred, unbreakable bond between them for all the years to come.

The trial was held in the hotel parlor, behind closed doors. The charges were vague and poorly supported by evidence, but the venom back of them was definite. Plainly stated, a pretty, incompetent girl had come West _for some reason_ never made clear to New Eden. Come as an heiress in "style and stuckuppitude of manner" (that was Stellar Bahrr's phrasing); had suddenly become poor and dependent on the good-will of J. B. Ponk, who had fought to the bitter end to give her "a place on the town pay-roll and keep her there" (that was the jealous superintendent's phrasing); and on the patronage of York Macpherson, who had really took her in, he and his honorable sister, even if they really were the worse "took in" of the two. At this point Ponk rapped for a better expression of terms. The young person had tried to "run things" in the church and schools and society. Even the superintendent himself had to be sure of her approval before he dared to start any movement in the high school. And no one of the preachers would invite her to unite with his church.

But to the charges now:

First: She had refused to let Clare Lenwell graduate who wasn't any worse than the rest of the class.

Secondly: She had a way of riding around over the country with young men on moonlight nights on horseback. Of going, the Lord knows where, with young men, _joy-riding_ in cars, or of going alone wherever she pleased in hired livery cars. And _some_ thought she met strange men and was acquainted with rough characters, and the moral influence of that was awfully bad; and there was something _even worse_, if that were possible, WORSE!

Things had disappeared around town often, but in _the last three years_ especially. If folks were poor, they needed money.

Then Stellar Bahrr came into the ring.

Jerry had sat and listened to the proceedings as an indifferent spectator to what could in no wise concern her. With the entrance of Mrs. Bahrr to the witness-stand, the girl's big, dreamy eyes grew brighter and her firm mouth was set, but no mark of anxiety showed itself in her face or manner.

Mrs. Bahrr whined a bit as to wishing only to do the right thing, but her steel-pointed eyes, as she fixed them in Jerry, wrote as with a stylus across the girl's understanding:

"You are hopelessly in the minority. Now I can say what I please."

What Mrs. Bahrr really knew, of course, she couldn't swear to in any court, because of Laura and York Macpherson. She wouldn't shame them, because they had befriended a fraud, all with good intentions. She only came now because she'd been promised protection by the board from what folks would say, and she was speaking what must _never_ be repeated.

"Most of us need that kind of protection when you are around," Ponk declared, vehemently, knowing that, while the school board would keep her words sacred, nothing said or done in that trial would be held sacred by her as soon as the decision she wished for was reached.

Stellar, feeling herself safe, paid no heed to Ponk. What she really knew was that a certain young lady had been known to take money from her hostess and, being caught, had been forced to give it up. Stellar herself saw and heard the whole thing when it happened. Laura had told her about the matter, and then, when she was just leaving, Jerry had returned the money. She was right outside of the vines on the porch, and she knew. Stellar knew that dollars and dollars, jewelry, silverware, and other valuables had been taken, and some of them never restored; but some was sneaked back when the pressure got too strong. In a word, through much talk and little sense, Miss Geraldine Swaim was branded a high-toned thief. And worse than that. For three years strange men had slipped to the Macpherson home when the folks were away, and been let out by the side door. Real low-down-looking fellows. Stellar had seen them herself. She had a way of running 'cross lots up to Laury's evenings, and _she knew_ what she was talking about. Stellar dropped her eyes now, not caring to look at Jerry. Her blow had hit home and she was exultant.

"Has the young lady anything to say?" Lenwell of the school board asked, feeling a twinge of pity, after all, because the case was even stronger than he had hoped it could be made.

Jerry looked over at Stellar Bahrr until she was forced to lift her eyes to the girl's face.

"I cannot understand the degree of hate that can be developed in a human mind," she said, calmly. "That is all I have to say."

Junius Brutus Ponk's round face seemed to blacken like a Kansas sky before the coming of a hail-storm. Lenwell gave a snort of triumph, and the third member of the board grinned.

At that moment the door of the hotel parlor opened. Jerry, who sat opposite to it, caught sight of York Macpherson in the hall. And York saw her, calm and brave, in what he read, in the instant, was defeat for her. Before her were dismissal, failure, and homelessness. But neither he nor any one else dreamed how far the influence of those Sunday afternoons of "calling on mother," with the fat little hotel-keeper, had led this girl into a "trust in every time of trouble," and she faced her future bravely.

It was not York Macpherson, but the little, fuzzy, shabby figure of old Fishin' Teddy who shuffled inside and closed the door, demanding in a quavering squeak to be heard.

Ponk gave a start of surprise; Lenwell was annoyed; the third man was indifferent now, being safe, anyhow. Stellar Bahrr and the superintendent stared in amazement, but Jerry's face was wonderful to see.

"'Ain't I got a right to say a word here, gentlemen?" old Teddy asked, looking at Ponk.

"If it's on the subject of this meeting, yes. If it's anything about fish, either in the Sage Brush or in Kingussie Creek, no. This really ain't no place for fish stories. We're overstocked with 'em right now, till this hotel and gurrage will have a 'ancient and a fishlike smell' as the Good Book says, for a generation."

"I just got wind of what was on up here. A man from your town come down to see me on business, an' he bringed me up."

"York Macpherson's the only man I ever knew had business with old Teddy. Lord be praised!" Ponk thought.

"I got a little testimony myself to offer here, for the one that's bein' blackmailed. I'll tell it fast as I can," Teddy declared.

"Take your time an' get it straight. None of us is in a hurry now," Ponk assured him.

Then the Teddy Bear, without looking at Jerry, gave testimony:

"Back in Pennsylvany, where I come from, in the Winnowoc country, I knowed Jim Swaim, this young lady's father. I wasn't no fisherman then. I was a hard-workin', well-meanin', honest man. My name was Hans Theodore--and somethin' else I have no use for since I come to the Sage Brush in Kansas."

He hesitated and looked down at his scaly brown paws and shabby clothes.

"I ain't telling this 'cause I want to, but 'cause I want to do justice to Jim Swaim's girl. Jim was my friend an' helped me a lot of ways. He was a hard-fisted business man, but awfully human with human bein's; an' his daughter's jes' like him, seems to me."

Jerry's cheeks were swept with the bloom of "Eden" roses as she sat with her eyes fixed on the old man. To her in that moment came a vision of Uncle Cornie in the rose-arbor when the colorless old man had pleaded with her to become as her father had been.

"I got into trouble back there. This is a secret session, hain't it?" The old man hesitated again.

"Yes, dead secret," Ponk assured him. "Nothin' told outside of here before it's first told inside, which is unusual in such secret proceedings, so you are among friends. Go on."

Stellar Bahrr sat with her eyes piercing the old man like daggers, while his own faded yellow-brown eyes drooped with a sorrowful expression.

"I won't say how it happened, but I got mixed up in some stealin' scrape--that's why I changed my name or, ruther, left off the last of it. I'd gone to the Pen--though ever' scrap I ever stole, or its money value, was actually returned to them that had lost it. Jim Swaim stood by me, helpin' me through, an' I paid him as I earnt it. Then he give me money to get started here, an' befriended me every way, just 'cause it was in him. I've lived out here on the Sage Brush alone 'cause I ain't fit to live with folks. But when the old _mainy_, as you say of crazy folk, comes, why, things is missin' up in town. They land in my shack sometimes, an' sometimes I'm honest enough to bring 'em back when I can do it. I'm the one that hangs around in the shadders, an' if you ketch sight of strange men at side doors, Mrs. Bahrr, it's me. An' when this Jerry Swaim (I knowed her when she was a baby; I carried her in my arms 'cross the Winnowoc once, time of a big flood up in Pennsylvany)--when her purseful of money was stole, three years ago, an' she comes down to my shack and finds it all there, why, she done by me then jus' like her own daddy 'd 'a' done, she never told on me at all. An' she hain't told all these years, and wa'n't goin' to tell on me now. I don't know what you mean 'bout these stories on her. She never done nothin' to be ashamed of in her life. 'Tain't in her family to be ashamed. They dunno how. If they's blame for stealin' in New Eden, though, jus' lay it on old Fishin' Teddy. You 'quit her now."

The old man's voice quavered as he squeaked out his words, and he shuffled aside, to be less in evidence in the parlor, where he had for the one time in his life been briefly the central figure.

The silence that followed his words was broken by Jerry's clear, low voice. Her face was beautiful in the soft light there. To Ponk she had never seemed so adorable before, not even on still Sabbath afternoons in the quiet corner of the cemetery where they talked as friends of mother-love and God, and Life after life.

"Friends, this old hermit fisherman is telling you a falsehood to try to shield me because of some favor my father showed him in the years gone by. If he is not willing to say more, to tell you the real truth, he will force me to say to you that I am the guilty one after all. I cannot let him make such a sacrifice for me."

She spoke as though she were explaining the necessity for changing cars in Chicago in order to reach Montreal. Old Fishin' Teddy lifted his clubby brown hands in protest.

"'Tain't so, an' 'tain't right," he managed to make the words come out--thin and trembling words, shaking like palsied things.

"No, it isn't so, and it isn't right, and he must not bear a disgrace he doesn't deserve. I'll do it for him," Jerry said, smiling upon the shabby old man--a common grub of the Sage Brush Valley.

There is nothing grander in human history, nothing which can more deeply touch the common human heart of us all, than the lesson of self-sacrifice taught on Mount Calvary. From the thief on the cross, down through all the centuries, has the blessed power of that Spirit softened the hearts of evil-doers, great or small. Jerry had not once turned toward Stellar Bahrr since the entrance of Fishin' Teddy. When she had ceased speaking, the silence of the room was broken by the town busybody's whining tone:

"They ain't neither one of 'em a thief, Mr. Ponk. It's me. They sha'n't do no such sacrificing thing."

The silence of the moment before was a shout compared to the dead silence now.

"Yes, it's me. I was born that way, an' it just seems I can't help it. I've done all the liftin', I guess, that's been done in this town a'most--'tain't so much, of course; but I ain't mean clear through, an' I jus' wouldn't ever rest in my grave if I don't speak now. I thought I'd always hide it, but I know I never will."

Old Teddy shrank back in a heap on his chair, while all of the rest except Jerry Swaim sat as if thunderstruck.

"I'm goin' clear through with it, now I've begun. Maybe I'll be a better woman if I am disgraced forever by it." Mrs. Bahrr's voice grew steadier and her eyes were fixed on the ground.

"Hans Theodore--the last part of his name is Bahrr--he's my husband. It was for my sins that he left Pennsylvany. Jim Swaim saved us from a lot of disgrace, and persuaded us to come West an' start over, an' helped us a lot. I couldn't break myself of wrong-doing just by changing climate, though. We tried Indiany first an' failed, then we come to S'liny, Kansas, next an' then we come on here. An' at last Theodore give me up an' went off alone an' changed his name. Mr. Lenwell's folks here is distant relatives, but they never would 'a' knowed Theodore. Didn't know he'd never got a divorce, and never stop supportin' me; like he'd said when we was married, he'd 'keep me unto death,' you know; and he'd come to see me once in a while, to be sure I wasn't needin' nothin'. I jus' worked along at one thing or another, an' Teddy earnt money an' paid it in to York Macpherson, like a pension, an' he paid me, York did. But Teddy wouldn't never live with me, though he never told York why. An' when I took things--"

Mrs. Bahrr paused and looked at Jerry deprecatingly.

"Like that silver cup I saw down at the deep hole?" Jerry asked, encouragingly.

"Yes, like that. I seen you down there that day. I was the woman that passed your car--"

"I know it," Jerry said, "I remember your sunbonnet and gray-green dress. I've often seen both since."

"Yes, an' you remember, too, the time I come out on the porch sudden when you first come here, an' made you promise not to tell." Mrs. Bahrr's voice quavered now.

"An' 'cause I knowed Teddy'd bring that right back to Macpherson's and you'd remember it, an' 'cause you were Jim Swaim's child that knowed my fault an' made me do what I didn't want to do, even if I was in the wrong, I hated you an' vowed to myself I'd fix you. It was me slipped into your room an' stuck Laury's purse into your beaded hand-bag, an' it was me took your roll of money from your own purse. Teddy took it away, though, that very night. Teddy he'd take whatever I picked up an' pretend he'd sell it, but he'd git it back to 'em some way if he could; an' he's saved an' sold fish an' lived a hermit life an' never told on me. He's slipped up to town to git me to put back or let him put back what I was tempted to pilfer, 'cause it seemed I just couldn't help it. York's been awful patient with me, too. But I can't set here an' be a woman and see Teddy shieldin' me, a hypocrite, an' her shieldin' him, an' not tellin' on me, like wimmen does on wimmen generally, an' not make a clean breast of it. An' if you'll not tell on me, an' all help me, I'll jus' try once more--"

"Won't anything go out of this room except what you tell yourself, Stellar Bahrr," Ponk said, gravely. "Now you go home an' begin to act better and think better, an' this'll be a heap cleaner town forever after. An' if you live right the rest of your days you 'll keep on livin' after you're dead, like mother does. The charges of this case is all settled. I congratulate you, Miss Fair Defendant. You are a Joan of Arc, an' a Hannah Dustin, an Boaz's Ruth, an' Barbara Fritchie, all in one."

While the other two members of the board were shamefacedly shaking hands and offering Jerry half of New Eden as a recompense, old Fishin' Teddy slipped out of the side door through the dining-room and on to where Ponk's best livery car waited to take him to his rude shack beside the deep hole in the Sage Brush.

As Jerry passed into the hall she found a crowd waiting for her--the three ministers from the churches, the mayor of New Eden, the friends of the Macphersons, York himself, and many more of the town's best, who had gathered to congratulate Jerry and to assure her of their pride in her ability and appreciation of her as a citizen of New Eden.

With the Commencement that night the school fuss and town split disappeared at one breath and passed into history.

When they reached the doorway of "Castle Cluny," after the Commencement exercises, York handed Jerry a letter. It was a long and affectionately worded message from Eugene Wellington, telling of the passing of Jerusha Darby, of his inheritance, and of his intention to come at once to Kansas and take her back to the "Eden" she had neglected so long.

And Jerry, worn with the events of the last few weeks, feeling the strain suddenly lifted, welcomed the letter and shed a tear upon it, saying, softly:

"Oh, I'm so tired of everything now! If he comes for me, he'll find me ready to meet him. The flesh-pots of the Winnowoc are better to me than this weary desert."

<tb>

Came an evening three days before the date for the lease on the Swaim land to expire. Jerry sat alone on the Macpherson porch. It had been an extremely hot day for June, with the dead, tasteless air that presages the coming of a storm, and to-night the moon seemed to struggle up toward the zenith against choking gray clouds that threatened to smother out its light.

Jerry was not happy to-night. She wanted Joe Thomson to come this evening. It had been such a long while since he had had time to leave the ranch for an evening with her.

And with the wishing Joe came. With firm step and the face of a victor he came. From his dark eyes hope and tenderness were looking out.

"I haven't seen you for ages, and ages are awfully long, you know," Jerry declared.

"I've been very busy," Joe replied. "You know you can't break the laws of the ranch and expect a harvest, any more than you can break the laws of geometry and depend on results. I would have been up sooner, though, but for one thing: a fellow on the ranch above mine who got hurt once with a mowing-machine had another accident and I've been helping the owner, that stout-hearted little Norwegian girl, Thelma Ekblad, to take care of their crops, too. Thelma is a courageous soul who has worked her way through the university, and she is a mighty capable girl, too. She would be a splendid success as a teacher, she is so well trained, but her family need her, and all of us down there need her."

Jerry caught her breath. It was the first time in three years that Joe had ever mentioned any girl with interest. But now this was all right and just as things should be. A neighbor, a capable Western girl--women see far, after all, and Jerry's romance had not been a foolish one.

"That's all right, Joe, but I have been wanting to see you"--the old "I want" as imperative again to-night as in the days when all of this girl's wants had been met by the mere expression of them.

"And I'm always wanting to see you, and never so much as to-night," Joe began, earnestly.

"Let me tell you first why I have wanted to see you once more," Jerry broke in, hastily.

In the dull light her dreamy dark-blue eyes and her golden hair falling away from her white brow left an imprint that Joe Thomson's mind kept henceforth; at the same time that "once more" cut a deeper wound than Jerry could know.

"My aunt Jerry Darby is dead." The girl's voice was very low. "I can't grieve for her, for she was old and tired of life and unhappy. You remember I told you about her one night here three years ago."

Joe did remember.

"She left all her fortune to Cousin Gene Wellington."

"The artist who turned out to be a bank clerk?" Joe asked. "I really always doubted that story."

"Yes, but, you know, he did it to please Aunt Jerry. Think of a sacrifice like that! Giving up one's dearest life-work!"

"I'm thinking of it. Excuse me. Go on," Joe said.

Jerry lifted her big dreamy eyes. The sparkle was gone and only the soft light of romance illumined them now.

"Gene is coming out to see me soon. I look for him any day. Everything is all settled about the property, and everything is going to be all right, after all, I am sure. And I'm so tired of teaching." Jerry broke off suddenly.

"But, oh, Joe," she began presently, "you will never, never know how much your comradeship has helped me through these three trying years of hard work and hopelessness. We have been only friends, of course, and you are such a good, helpful kind of a friend. I never could have gotten through without you."

"Thank you, the pleasure is mine. I--I think I must go now."

Joe rose suddenly and started to leave the porch. In an instant the very earth had slidden out from under his feet. The memory of York Macpherson's warning swept across his mind as the blowout sands sweep over the green prairie. And he had come to say such different words to-night. He had reached the end of a long, heart-breaking warfare with nature and he had won. And now a new warfare broke forth in his soul.

At that moment a sudden boom of thunder crashed out of the horizon and all the lightnings of the heavens were unleashed, while a swirling dust-deluge filled the darkening air. Jerry sprang forward, clutching Joe's arm with her slender fingers.

"The storm will be here in a minute," she cried, "You must not leave now. You mustn't face this wind. Look at that awful black cloud and see how fast it is coming on. I don't want you to go away. Where can you go?"

But Joe only shook off her grip, saying, hoarsely:

"I'm going down the Sage Brush. If you ever want me again, you'll find me beyond the blowout."

The word struck like a blow. For three years Jerry had not heard it spoken. It was the one term forever dropped from her vocabulary. All who loved her must forget its very existence.

There was a sudden dead calm in the hot yellow air; a moment of gathering forces before the storm would burst upon the town.

"If you ever see me beyond that blowout, you'll know that I do want you," Jerry said, slowly.

In the blue lightning glare that followed, her white face and big dark eyes recalled to Joe Thomson's mind the moment, so long ago now, it seemed, when Jerry had first looked out at the desert from under the bough of the oak-grove.

During the prolonged, terrific burst of thunder that followed, the young ranchman strode away and the darkness swallowed his stalwart form as the worst storm the Sage Brush country had ever known broke furiously upon the whole valley.

And out on the porch steps stood a girl conscious, not of the storm-wind, nor the beating rain, nor cleaving lightning; conscious only that something had suddenly gone out of her life into the blackness whither Joe Thomson had gone; and with the heartache of the loss of the moment was a strange resentment toward a brave-hearted little Norwegian girl--a harvest-hand with a crippled brother, an adopted baby, and a university education.

XVIII

THE LORD HATH HIS WAY IN THE STORM

Laura Macpherson sat on the porch, watching her brother coming slowly up the street, seemingly as oblivious to the splendor of the sunset to-night as he had been on a June evening three summers ago.

"That was the worst cloudburst I ever heard of out here," he declared, when he reached the porch. "Every man in town who could carry a shovel has been out all day, up-stream or down-stream, helping to dig out the bottomland farms. I've been clear to the upper Sage Brush, doing a stunt or two myself. I left my muddy boots and overalls at the office so that I wouldn't be smearing up your old Castle here."

Even in the smallest things York's thoughts were for his crippled sister.

"There's a lot of wild stories out about buildings being swept away and lives being lost, here and there in the valley. You needn't believe all of them until your trustworthy brother confirms them for you, little sister. Such events have their tragedies, but the first estimate is always oversize."

"Even if your Big Dipper tells me, shall I wait for your confirmation?" Laura inquired, blandly.

"Oh, Laura, I'm going to cut out all that astronomical business now, even if I always did know that the right way to pronounce the name Bahrr is plain Bear, however much you have to stutter to spell it. Stellar has been, as the Methodists say, 'redeemed and washed in the blood of the Lamb.' I'm taking her in on probation, myself, and if she sticks it out for six months I'll take her into full membership."

"What do you mean, York?" Laura inquired.

"I mean that since they settled the school row in secret session, Mrs. Bahrr has been as different a woman as one can be who has let the habit of evil thinking become a taskmaster. I've never told you that her husband is still living, a shabby old fellow who gives me money for her support as fast as he can earn it, but he won't live with her. She flies from hat-trimming to sewing and baking and nursing and back to sewing, and she never earns much anywhere, and works up trouble just for pure cussedness. But to-day she went to the upper Sage Brush to help old Mrs. Poser. The Posers were nearly washed away, and the old lady is sick and lonely and almost helpless. She needs somebody to stay with her. Yes, Stellar is really becoming a star--a plain, homely planet, doing a good-angel line where she's most useful. We'll let the past stay where it belongs, and count her reclaimed to better things now."

"Amen! And what about the valley down-stream? It must be worse, because the storm came up from that way," Laura declared.

"There are plenty of rumors, but I haven't heard anything definite yet, for I just got here, you know, and, as I telephoned you, found Mr. Wellington had registered at Ponk's inn. The traveling-men who were on the branch line have brought the first word to town to-day. The train is stuck somewhere down the valley, and the tracks, for the most part, are at the bottom of the Sage Brush. There are washouts all along the road-bed, and the passengers have been hauled up the stream, across fields, and every other way, except by the regular route. No automobile can travel the trail now, so our Philadelphia gentleman arrives a good bit disgusted with this bloomin' Western country, don't you know; and sore from miles of jolting; and hungry; and sort of mussy-looking for a banker; but cocksure of a welcome and of the power to bring salvation to one of us at least."

York dropped down on the porch step with a frown, flinging aside his hat and thrusting his fingers savagely into his heavy hair.

"Oh, well!" he exclaimed, dejectedly. "There's been a three years' running fight between Jim Swaim's determined chin and Lesa's tender eyes. I had hoped to the Lord that Jim would win the day, but that whirlwind campaign of pleading and luxury-tempting letters came just at the end of a hard year's work in the high school, with all that infernal fuss in the Senior class, splitting the town open for a month and being forgotten in an hour, and the jealousy toward the best teacher we've ever had here, etcetera. So the '_eyes_' seem to have it. If there were no ladies present," York added, with a half-smile, "I'd feel free to express my lordly judgment of the whole damned sex."

"Don't hesitate, Yorick; a little cussing might ease your liver," Laura declared, surprised and amused at her brother's unexpected vehemence of feeling.

"There's nothing in the English language, as she is cussed, to do the subject justice, but I might practise a few minutes at least," York began.

"Hush, York! That is Mr. Eugene Wellington coming yonder. I'll call Jerry. Poor Joe!" Laura added, pityingly. "I have a feeling he is the real sufferer here."

"Yes, poor Joe!" York echoed, sadly. "Ponk will just soar above his hurt, but men of Joe's dogged make-up die a thousand deaths when they do die."

Lesa Swaim's daughter was gloriously beautiful to Eugene Wellington's artistic eyes as he sat beside her on the porch on this beautiful evening. And Eugene himself held a charm in his very presence. All the memories of the young years of culture and ease; all the daintiness of perfect dress and perfect manners; all the assurance that a vague, sweet dream was becoming real; all the sense of a struggle for a livelihood now ended; all the breaking of the grip of stern duty, and an unbending pride in a clear conscience, although their rewards had been inspiringly sweet--all these seemed to Jerry Swaim to lift her suddenly and completely into the real life from which these three busy, strange years had taken her. Oh, she had been only waiting, after all. Nothing mattered any more. Eugene and she had looked at duty differently. That was all. He was here now, here for her sake. Henceforth his people were to be her people--his God her God. Uncle Cornie was wise when he said of Eugene: "He comes nearer to what you've been dreaming about." He seemed not so much a lover as a fulfilment of a craving for love.

The first sweet moment of meeting was over. Her future, their future, shrouded only by a rose-hued mist, beyond which lay light and ease, was waiting now for them to enter upon. In this idyllic hour Geraldine, daughter of Lesa Swaim, had come to the very zenith of life's romance.

"It has been a cruel three years, Jerry," Eugene was saying, as, their first greetings over, he lighted a cigarette and adjusted himself picturesquely and easefully in York Macpherson's big porch chair--a handsome, perfectly groomed, artistic fellow, he appeared fitted as never before to adorn life's ornamental places.

"But they are past now. You won't have to teach any more, little cousin o' mine. York Macpherson says your land lease expires to-day. So your business transactions here are over, and we'll just throw that ground in the river and forget it."

He might have taken the girl's hand in his as they sat together, but instead he clasped his own hands gracefully and studied their fine outlines.

"I have all the Darby estate in my own name now, you know, and I didn't have to work a stroke at earning it. God! I wonder how a fellow can stand it to work for every dollar he gets until he is comfortably fixed. I simply filled in my banking-hours in a perfunctory way, and I didn't kill myself at it, either. See what I have saved by it for myself and you, and how much better my course was than yours, after all. Just three years of waiting, and dodging all the drudgery I possibly could. And you can just bet I'm a good dodger, Jerry."

Something like a chill went quivering through Jerry Swaim's whole being, but the smile in her eyes seemed fixed there, as Eugene went on:

"Now if I had stuck to art, where would I have been and where would you be right now? I've always wanted to paint the prairies. If I can stand this blasted, crude country long enough, and if I'm not too lazy, we'll play around here a little while, till I have smeared up a few canvases, and then we'll go home, never to return, dear. Art is going to be my pastime hereafter, you know, as it was once my--my--"

"Oh, never mind what it once was." Jerry helped to end the sentence.

The sunset on the Sage Brush was never more radiantly beautiful than it was on this evening, and the long midsummer twilight gave promise of its rarest grandeur of coloring. But a dull veil seemed to be slowly dropping down upon Jerry's world.

Eugene Wellington looked at her keenly.

"Why, Jerry, aren't you happy to see me--glad for us to be together again?" he asked, with just a tinge of sharpness edging his tones.

"I have looked forward to this meeting as a dream, an impossible joy. I hardly realize yet that it isn't a dream any more," Jerry answered him.

"Say, cousin girl," Eugene Wellington exclaimed, suddenly, "I have been trying all this time to find out what it is that is changed in your face. Now I know. You have grown to look so much more like your father than you did three years ago. Better looking, of course, but his face, and I never noticed it before. Only you will always have your mother's beautiful eyes."

"Thank you, Gene. They were, each in his and her way, good to me. I hope I shall never put a stain upon their good names," Jerry murmured, wondering strangely whether the feeling that gripped her at the moment could be joy or sorrow.

"They didn't leave you much of an inheritance. That's the only thing that could be said against them. My father was partly to blame for that, I guess, but I never had the courage to tell you so till now. You know courage and Eugene Wellington never got on well together." Somehow his words seemed to rattle harshly against Jerry's ears. "You know, my dad, John Wellington, came out here to this very forsaken Sage Brush Valley somewhere and started in to be a millionaire himself on short notice, by the short-cut plan of finance. When the thing began to look like work he threw up the whole blamed concern, just as I would have done. Work never was a strong element in the Wellington blood, any more than courage, you know." Gene stopped to light another cigarette. Then he went on: "Well, after that, dad clung close to Jim Swaim and Uncle Darby till he died. I guess, if the truth were told, he helped most to tear your father down financially. He could do that kind of thing, I know. Jim Swaim spent thousands stopping the cracks after dad, to save the good name of Wellington for his daughter to wear--as your mother always hoped you would, because I was an artist then. You see, Mrs. Swaim loved art--and, as Aunt Darby always insisted (that was before you ran away from her), because it would keep her money and Uncle Darby's all in the family. That's why I'm so glad to bring all this fortune that I do to you now. I'm just making up to you what your father lost through mine, you see, and it came to me so easily, without my having to grub for it. Just pleasing Aunt Darby and taking a soft snap of clerical work, with short hours and good pay, instead of toiling at painting, even if I do love the old palette and brush. And I used to think I'd rather do that sort of thing than anything else in the world."

Jerry's eyes were fixed on the young artist's face with a gaze that troubled him.

"Don't stare at me that way, Jerry. That isn't the picture I want you to pose for when I paint your portrait, Saint Geraldine. Now listen," Eugene continued. "Your York Macpherson was East this spring, and he told me that that wild-goose chase of dad's out here had left a desert behind him. He said a poor devil of a fellow had fought for years against the sand that dad sowed (I don't know how he did the sowing), till it ate up about all this poor wretch had ever had. The unfortunate cuss! York tried to tell Aunt Darby (but I headed him off successfully) that dad started a thing that became what they call a 'blowout' here. York Macpherson wanted to put up a big spiel to her about justice to you and some other folks--this poor critter who got sanded over, maybe. But it didn't move me one mite, and I didn't let it get by to Aunt Jerry's ears, although I half-way promised York I would, to get rid of the thing the easiest way, for that's my way, you know. Did you ever see such a precious thing as a 'blowout' here, Jerry?"

Jerry's face was white and her eyes burned blue-black now with a steady glow. "Never, till to-night," she said, slowly. "I never dreamed till now how barren a thing a lust for property can create."

Gene Wellington dropped his cigarette stub and stared a moment. He did not grasp her meaning at all, but her voice was not so pleasant, now, as her merry laugh and soft words had been three years ago.

"By the way, coming up to-day, I heard of a dramatic situation. I think I'll hunt up the local color for a canvas for it," Eugene began, by way of changing the theme. "You know you had a horribly rotten storm of thunder and lightning and wind, and a cloudburst down the river valley where our train was stuck in the mud, and the tracks were all lost in the sand-drift and other vile debris. Well, coming up here from the derailed train, some one said that the young fellow who had leased that land, or owned the land, that is just above the sand-line, the poor devil who had such a struggle, you know--well, he was lost when the river overflowed its banks. But somebody else said he might be marooned, half starved, on an island of sand out in the river, waiting for the flood to go down. The roads are just impassable around there, so they can't get in to see what has become of him. His house was washed away, it seems--I saw a part of it in the river--but nobody knows where he is. Hard luck, wasn't it? I know you'll be glad to leave this God-forsaken country, won't you, dearie? How you ever stood it for three whole years I can't comprehend. Only you always were the bravest girl I ever knew. Just as soon as I paint a few of its drearinesses we'll be leaving it forever. What's the matter?"

Jerry Swaim had sprung to her feet and was standing, white and silent, staring at her companion with wide-open, burning eyes. Against all the culture and idle ease of her trivial, purposeless years were matched these three times twelve months of industry and purpose that came at a price, with the comradeship of one who had met life's foes and vanquished them, who earned his increase, and served and sacrificed.

"What's the matter, Jerry?" Gene repeated. "Did I shock you? It is a tragical sort of story, I know, but you used to love the romantic and adventurous. Every big storm, and every flood, has such incidents. I never remember them a minute, except the storm that took Uncle Cornie and left me a fortune. They are so unpleasant. But there is a touch of romance in this for you. They told me that a young Norwegian girl down there was moving heaven and earth to find this poor lost devil, because he had been so good to her always and had helped her when her brother was badly hurt. I guess her brother went down-stream, bottom side up, too. See the drift of it all? The time, the place, and the girl--there's your romance, Cousin Jerry, only the actors are terribly common, you know."

Who can forecast the trend of the human heart? Three days ago Jerry had thought complacently of the convenience of this stout little Thelma for Joe's future comfort. Now the thought that Thelma had seen him last, had caught the last word, the last brave look, smote her heart with anguish.

"Doesn't anybody know where Joe is?" she cried, wringing her hands.

"I don't know if his name is Joe. I don't know if anybody knows where he is. I really don't care a sou about it all, Jerry." Gene drawled his words intentionally. "The roads are awful down that way. They nearly bumped me to pieces coming up, hours and hours, it seemed, in a wagon, where a decent highway and an automobile would have brought me in such a short time. It would be hard to find this Joe creature, dead or alive. Let's talk about something more artistic."

"Gene, I can't talk now. I can't stay here a minute longer. I _must_ go and find this man. I must! I must!"

In the frenzy of that moment, the strength of character in Jerry's face made it wonderful to see.

"Jerry!" Eugene Wellington exclaimed, emphatically. "You perfectly shock me! This horrid country has almost destroyed your culture. Go and find this man--"

But Jerry was already hurrying up the street toward Ponk's Commercial Hotel and Garage.

<tb>

"Miss Swaim, you can't never get by in a car down there," Ponk was urging, five minutes later. "I know you can drive like--like you can work algebra, logyruthms, and never slip a cog. But you'll never get down the Sage Brush that far to-night. If them Norwegians on beyond the ranch yon side of the big bend 'ain't done nothing, you just can't. The Ekblads and the other neighbors will do all a body can, especially Thelmy. The river's clear changed its channel an' you could run a car up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, back in New Hampshire, easier than you could cut the gullies an' hit the levels of the lower Sage Brush trail after this flood."

"Get the car ready quick. _I want to go_," Jerry commanded, and Ponk obeyed. A minute later a gray streak whizzed by the Macpherson home, where Eugene Wellington stood on the porch staring in speechless amazement.

"Bless her heart!" he ejaculated, at length. "She is self-willed like her dad. Aunt Darby always told me I'd have to manage her with gloves on, but not to forget to manage her, anyhow."

He strolled back to the Commercial Hotel, where the best-natured man in Kansas lay in wait for him.

"You're in early. Have a real cigar--a regular Havany-de-Cuby--off of me. An' take a smoke out here where it's cool."

Eugene took the proffered cigar and the seat on the side porch of the hotel that commanded a view of the street clear to "Castle Cluny."

"Town's pretty quiet this evenin'. All the men are gone up-stream or down, to see if they can help in the storm region. Every store shut up tight as wax. Three preachers, station-agent, the three movie men--gone with the rest. We are a sympathetic bunch out here, an' rather quick to get the S O S signal and respond noble."