A frontier knight

THE sun was shining gloriously across level sweeps of blue-grass meadow-land, and sending its beams through the windows of a plain, substantial, country house, where it made squares of brightness on the whitewashed walls, sharply outlining the shadows, and touching to gold the fair hair of a girl who sat motionless on a low stool near the window. She was thinking intently and did not heed the entrance of an older girl who glanced at her with a smile and began to busy herself about the room.

Finally the girl at the window gave a deep sigh and stretched her hands above her head. “Oh, is it dinner time, Christine?” she said.

“Very near,” was the reply. “What a brown study you were in, Alison; you must have been miles away.”

“And so I was. I must decide, you know.”

“Yes, I do know.” There was a serious note in Christine’s voice. “And have you decided?” she asked after a pause.

“Yes.” The girl arose and came to where her sister stood. She laid her hands on the shoulders of the other and looked steadfastly into the clear eyes. “I am going with you and John,” she said. “There are just the three of us, and I cannot be separated from you, even though I have this home for always, mine at Aunt Miranda’s death and all its comforts while I live here. I have thought it over. I have thought of the days which will go by all alike; everything just so, all cut and dried; up at such an hour every morning; hot rolls for breakfast on Wednesdays and Saturdays, cold bread on Mondays. Every chair set at exactly such an angle, Aunt Miranda always with her hair parted precisely, Uncle Brown with his whiskers curled in just such a fashion, never a hair out of place; never any excitement; once a month the minister and his wife to dinner; once a year a day in town; twice a year house-cleaning; no adventure, no fun, nothing but dull monotony and commonplace comfort.”

“But Aunt Miranda is good and kind in her way, and Uncle Brown is just, if he is particular and a trifle near.” Christine felt it her duty to plead their cause.

“Then don’t you want me?” said Alison wistfully.

“Want you?” Christine’s arms went around her. “Think how I shall want you when we are away off there amidst strangers; when John must leave me alone in our little cabin and I am homesick and yearning for just one glimpse of my little sister. Think how I shall want you.”

“Then there is nothing more to be said.” Alison moved away and began to set the dishes on the table.

“Yes, there is. I can’t be selfish about it, and I must show you the advantages offered you here: a comfortable home where the larder never fails, where the flour barrel is never empty; where the potatoes and turnips and apples are plentifully stored away every year; where the hogs are killed in due season and the preserves put up; where all is orderly and exact. Uncle Brown is a good provider if his wife does not have much ready money to spend on fripperies. I may not be able to have more than one frock of blue jeans a year.”

“We shall be as well dressed as our neighbors, no doubt,” replied Alison.

“And though you may have to help Aunt Miranda as a daughter should, you will have one more year of schooling, and you will have neighbors, young people, who are not such a very great distance away,” Christine continued her argument. “Our settlement may be miles from any other and there may be only married couples there.”

“But you will be there, and so will John, and—Fidgetty Lou.”

“Why, what do you mean, Alison?” said Christine in surprise.

“Fidgetty Lou declares she is going if you do.”

“But we can’t take her.”

“She says she is going,” repeated Alison. “I think that is a great inducement. No one makes better biscuits and flapjacks. She will be a great addition to our household, I think.”

“But if we do not take her how will she ever get there?”

“She says she can find a way, and she says furthermore that she has worked all these years for nothing but her board and clothes, so she doesn’t see why she cannot do it a while longer, if she chooses to.”

“John will never consent to taking all three of us; he will be delighted if you go, but Fidgetty Lou——” She shook her head, and Alison laughed.

“Settle it between you,” she said. “I am going, anyhow, for if Fidgetty Lou has the courage to face the uncertainty of pioneer life, why should not I? Especially since my nearest and dearest will be with me. Fidgetty Lou has no such tugging at her heart-strings.”

“It will be a blow to Aunt Miranda to lose you both.”

“She has never had me to lose, for I am here only on a visit; it was so understood from the first, and at the end of the three months I was to decide whether I would accept the offer of a home here, an offer which I am made to understand is of great advantage. I am very sure that Uncle Brown will not omit every morning to pray openly for the ‘young pensioner upon our bounty.’ I shall never be allowed to forget, even on Sundays, that I am a pensioner, and it will be a great strain upon me to beam gratitude when my heart is pining for you. As for Fidgetty Lou, she has always declared that when her time was out she meant to leave. She has never said anything else, and now that she has fallen in love with my big sister she is determined to follow her fortunes. You may be four years older than I, Tina, but you cannot persuade me that my lot here will be a happier one than with you and John. It is all clear enough in my mind and I shall tell Aunt Miranda to-night. It will not break her heart to part with me, and so far as Fidgetty Lou is concerned she will get another orphan to train up the way she should go, and will rather enjoy the process.”

“Fidgetty Lou could get good wages somewhere,” said Christine thoughtfully.

“She would rather see the world at present. Here she comes.”

Fidgetty Lou entered, arrayed in a spotless blue frock and gingham apron. Her red hair was drawn tightly back into a hard knot; her freckled face beamed with good-nature. A little nervous twitch of the head alone remained as the result of an attack of St. Vitus’s dance which had obtained for her, when a child, the nickname of Fidgetty Lou. Behind her came Aunt Miranda, as scrupulously neat. Her black alpaca apron covered a black stuff gown; her hair, plastered down each side her face and tucked behind her ears, showed not a stray lock. She looked the table over comprehensively, then replaced some of the knives and forks, remarking that they were not laid quite straight. “Set that dish a little more to the left, Louisa,” she ordered. “Bring in the rest of the dinner, and then call Mr. Brown.” She looked at her nieces critically. “I wish you would try to smooth your hair a little, Alison,” she said. “Your uncle dislikes to see a frowsy head.”

Alison cast an amused glance at her sister as she hastily tucked under a few stray, curling tendrils which had escaped from the confines of her neat braids. “A frowsy head!” she whispered as she passed Christine. “I must go and wet it into sleekness or I shall be disgraced.” The thought that she would soon escape from the lectures of an over-particular uncle and the reproving words of a particular aunt made her sing a little song of joy as she ran down-stairs again.

Her uncle was just coming in. “A little too noisy, Alison,” he said. “Remember that ‘the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’”

“Yes,” she returned brightly, “but the wise man also says, ‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’ You read that this morning, I remember.” Alison was usually too ready to meet her uncle’s quotations with counter-texts exactly to meet his approval, for he preferred to adapt the Scriptures to point his own opinions. But on this occasion he said nothing and the two passed on to the dinner-table.

Nevertheless this small passage at arms had its effect in producing less opposition when the moment came for Alison to declare her decision. This she did that same evening, after supper, when all were gathered in the living-room. Save for the ticking of the big clock all was very still. Uncle Brown was poring over his weekly paper, while Aunt Miranda neatly patched a hole in some table linen, and Christine’s fingers were flying along the hem of a sheet.

“Have you nothing to do, Alison?” asked her aunt disapprovingly. “Where is your knitting?”

“I have it here,” responded Alison, producing her knitting-bag and drawing forth a half finished sock. “I want to tell you,” she said, speaking hurriedly, “that I have decided to go with John and Christine.”

Mr. Brown lowered his paper. “And quite rightly, Miranda,” he observed. “Christine will need the companionship of another woman, and, if ill, her ministrations. I am glad Alison has seen where her duty lies and that she has chosen the rough path of industry and privation rather than the smooth one of sleek and untroubled ease.”

Mrs. Brown looked a little surprised and was ready with her protest. “But for a young girl like you, Alison, to go to such a place as that, haunted by cut-throat Mexicans and lawless Indians, seems unnecessary. Of course if one of you must go, Christine is the older and therefore the proper one, though I must say it would be better if she could remain in a more civilized community. As your father’s elder sister I must object, and I am surprised that you should countenance this decision, Ephraim.” She turned to her husband.

“I quite appreciate your sisterly concern for your brother’s offspring, Miranda,” returned Mr. Brown, “yet viewing it from a disinterested standpoint, I think Alison is right.” Mr. Brown had studied for the ministry in his youth, but owing to ill health had never completed his course. However, he had never lost a certain ministerial manner, and a strong tendency to give opinions upon moral questions.

The farm belonged to Mrs. Brown, but was successfully managed by her husband.

“We do not grudge you a home. I hope you understand that,” Mrs. Brown remarked. “I should be deficient in respect to my brother, as well as in doing my duty, if I did not offer you freely a home with me. I have already said that having no children of my own I shall make a will in your favor if you remain with me, though I do not wish you to think I desire to buy your presence by favors.”

“I understand it all, dear aunt,” said Alison, quite willing to show responsiveness to any affection which Mrs. Brown might feel for her, “but there are only the three of us, and, as Uncle Brown says, if Christine were to fall ill, I should be miserable if I knew I had failed her when she needed me. I thank you very heartily, but I believe my place is with my sister and brother.”

“We will say no more about it, then,” said Mrs. Brown, “except that if you change your mind any time within the next two years you will find my home open to you. I will not stand in the way of what you believe to be your duty at the present moment, but time may work changes. When do you expect John, Christine?”

“He thought he would be able to make all arrangements so as to be here at the end of the week,” Christine told her.

“And we shall be ready to start next week,” Alison added.

No further reference was made to the subject that evening, but the next day Mrs. Brown came to her nieces in a fine passion. “Which of you has been trying to lure Louisa away?” she asked angrily.

“Neither of us,” spoke up Alison. “She told me yesterday that she was free now, and meant either to go with us or to go to a place where she could earn wages; then, later, she said she had decided to go wherever we did.”

“I am sure I don’t know what John will say,” Christine put in. “He surely cannot tote three women down to Texas, and I, for one, am very sorry Lou has any such notion.”

Mrs. Brown was somewhat mollified. “Well, I am glad to know you have no hand in it,” she said. “Of course I’ve known for some time that I couldn’t expect to keep her much longer. Old Maria needs some one to save her steps, and cannot do much out of the kitchen. I suppose I can get another orphan bound out to me, but it is ungrateful of Louisa, I must say, after all I have taught her. I have given her a home, too, all these years.”

“But she has earned her board and clothes, hasn’t she?” said Alison, ready to champion Louisa.

“Well, yes, I suppose some would say so. I should be willing to keep her if Mr. Brown would agree to give her wages, but he will not. Maria belongs to us, and he says we can get plenty of help without paying wages. She is eighteen and over, and I suppose I ought not to expect to keep her much longer.” This ended the controversy over Louisa so far as Christine and Alison were concerned, and soon they were too busy in preparing for their own long journey to be greatly interested in what Fidgetty Lou meant to do.

In due time John Ross appeared. He had been steadily occupied in arranging for the emigration to the new state of Texas, and had left his young sisters with their relatives until he should complete his preparations. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, keen-eyed young fellow, rather quiet in manner but with a fund of humor much appreciated by his comrades. He was always called Texas John in the old neighborhood, to distinguish him from his cousin John Ross, who was about his own age, and who, lately married, had no desire to leave Kentucky. Texas John, at the death of his parents, had found little left for the support of himself and sisters, so he started for Texas to look up a grant which he thought promised a living for the three. The elder Ross had been something of a rover, and had been killed in a struggle with the Mexicans while serving in the effort to maintain the independence of the young republic of Texas. Perhaps his spirit of adventure was his son’s by inheritance, for the latter was enthusiastic in his belief in the wild country, where, he was satisfied, were better prospects for him than nearer home. Having placed his young sisters at school he started off to look up his claim and after a two years’ absence returned home, settled up affairs and was now ready to emigrate for good.

He strode into the living-room one bright day in early October. “Ready, girls?” he cried. “We can be off in a few days.”

Christine sprang to his arms. “Is it all settled then?” she asked eagerly.

“All settled.”

“And do you know Alison has decided to go with us?”

He gave the younger girl a bright look. “I knew we could count on her,” he said. “I didn’t think she would desert her brother for any old——”

“Sh! Sh!” whispered Christine, putting her hand over his mouth as Uncle Brown entered.

“So you are really on the road to that cut-throat country,” he said to young Ross as they shook hands.

“It’s a pretty good country from what I have seen of it,” returned John. “It has had its little scuffles, I admit, but it’s in the Union now and I reckon it’s in for good.”

“It may be in for bad, so far as some of us are concerned,” was the reply. “Mexico will probably think she has a word to say on that subject. She hasn’t acknowledged yet that Texas is anything but one of her provinces. What will you do if she wars over it?”

“I’ll go and fight. You can’t scare me that way,” said John. “We’ve the whole United States to back us now, and I reckon we can teach Mexico where Texas belongs.”

Uncle Brown shook his head. “It doesn’t strike me that I’d like to live in such an unsettled country. Just a few years ago it was a Spanish colony, then it was an independent republic, and now it is a state.”

John looked reflectively out of the window where yellowed fields spoke of gathered harvests. “It has had its baptism of blood,” he said. “It has arisen from its ashes. Brave patriots have made it what it is. My father died for its sake. He would be glad to know that his son means to carry out what he began. When he left his family he meant to come back for us all; it was his dream to build up a home in Texas, and to have us grow up with it. Because he died in the struggle for independence is the very reason that I am the more anxious to carry out his wishes.”

The young man’s face became stern and determined. Christine crept closer to him. Her memory went back to the time when the news came of her father’s death at Goliad, and when her brother, pale and full of set purpose, registered a vow to avenge his death. Seven years later Christine had wept bitter tears at the departure of this brother to the new republic of Texas. Returning when the young state had become a part of the Union, he found Christine a fair, sweet young woman, and Alison almost as tall. The recollection of all these events, during which the elder of the two sisters had grown from girlhood to womanhood, flashed across her memory as she leaned against her brother. She understood and appreciated his desire to follow out his father’s plans. She was willing to share joy or sorrow with him, and now that Alison had cast in her lot with theirs she had not a regret.

There was another reason, too, which Christine acknowledged to no one but herself, but which carried more weight than any other when she came to think of going to Texas, and this was that her brother’s companion and partner was no other than her playmate Steve Hayward, who had been her neighbor and comrade ever since she could remember. It was he who had carried her books to school, who had helped her with her lessons, who had made her a ring carved from a peach stone, when she was but eight years old, and who had promised to marry her when they two should be grown. In later years he had not repeated the promise, but when he went away with John he had said: “I am coming back here to get my wife, Christine,” and she understood, without more words. Now it was she who was going to him, and there was not a fear in her heart, even though Uncle Brown spoke discouragingly. So she smiled up at her brother, saying: “Tell uncle all about the arrangements, John.”

“We go from here down the river to the Red,” he began, “and when we have landed at the nearest point, we can take wagons about twenty miles further on where our grant lies. It isn’t as if it were an entirely strange place, for I’ve plenty of friends there, and we have a stout new house waiting for us. Steve has another a few rods away, and after a while I shall be able to put up a good frame house and be as fine as any one. We shall not be uncomfortable as it is, for we are taking all that is necessary, and I have even such luxuries as I thought could be easily transported, for I didn’t want the girls to feel as if they had no part of their old home. The soil is rich, and the climate can’t be beat. I don’t believe I am taking the girls to such a miserable place as you would have us believe. When you hear how well we are getting along you will be wanting to move down there yourself, sir.”

“Don’t you think it,” returned Mr. Brown. “Kentucky will never see me desert her. Well, John, I wish you luck, though I must say I should have more faith in your getting on if you were going to stay in the old blue-grass country. It is good enough for me.”

John shook his head and smiled. His was adventurous youth and Uncle Brown’s was the conservative spirit of middle age.