A frontier knight

BEFORE the middle of November the armistice of Monterey was ended and a little later General Worth took possession of Saltillo. By the 9th of March, General Scott, who was now in chief command of all the forces in Mexico, had conducted an expedition against Vera Cruz, and had landed an army of thirteen thousand men at a point near that place. In the meantime General Taylor had posted his army in a strong position at Buena Vista, and, after fierce fighting, had repulsed the enemy. Then began the memorable march upon the City of Mexico, during which the towns of Jalapa, and Perote with its fortress upon the summit of the Cordilleras, were surrendered, and Puebla, that ancient walled and fortified city, the third of importance in Mexico, was entered, in triumph.

From this place came a characteristic letter from Neal Jordan to his friends. “We have had some tall fighting,” he wrote, “and there promises to be more of the same variety before we get to Mexico.” He then gave them a short, graphic description of the battle in which he had lately taken part, and closed by saying: “I wish some of you-all would write to me. Tell one of the girls I’ll bring her something pretty from Mexico if she will sit down and write me a real good letter and tell me what you-all are doing these days. I’ve not heard a word since John left and that seems a long time ago. I’d be glad to-day to see even an old hound dog if he came from any of you, and I ain’t sure but what I’d hug him.”

“That sounds just like Neal,” said Alison. “Tina, you must write to him.”

“Why must I any more than you?”

“Oh, because you are the older.”

“Nonsense, you have less to do, and you never mind writing.”

“To be sure there is no lack of news,” said Alison, thoughtfully. “But I should think you would like to write to him when he is so eager to hear from us; it’s quite pathetic.”

“If you feel that way you’d better go right to work and send him a budget. I am in no humor for it.”

Therefore it was Alison who spent an entire afternoon in covering pages to send to Neal. A newsy, cheery letter it was, girlishly full of underscored words and enthusiastic accounts of what had happened in the past months since he left them. Details concerning home matters and certain favorite animals were not overlooked, and the frank, unstudied epistle warmed the heart of the young Texan Ranger, and made him so preoccupied as to bring upon him the mocking laughter of his comrades. More than once during the days which followed he took out the letter and read it over, lingering upon the last words: “Here’s love from us all. May you come back safe to John, Christine and Alison.”

“I might have said ‘your friends, John, Christine and Alison,’” said the girl as she read over the lines; “that might have sounded better, but I cannot rewrite it, so it will have to go as it is.”

“What, haven’t you finished that letter yet?” asked Christine, coming in as Alison was folding the sheet. “I wanted you to see about getting some milk for supper.”

“I have just finished, and my fingers fairly ache from holding a pen so long. I wonder if I shall be able to milk. I will get Lolita to help me, I think. You may read my letter if you like. I think I have made it a fairly interesting one. Don’t seal it yet; I want to put something in it.”

“What?”

“Oh, a funny picture Blythe drew of you and me going out to milk. It will amuse Neal.”

Blythe had long since departed to his own home, having been, during the last weeks of his convalescence, under the same roof with his mother and the Ross family. Many an hour the girls spent in amusing him, and they had all been on such intimate terms that Blythe, who had quite a gift for caricature, used many of his idle moments in making entertaining pictures of the different members of the family going about their various employments. It was one of these Alison enclosed to Neal. It was sufficiently like to bring the two girls very vividly before the young man, but his memory went beyond the suggestion and saw them as they really were, Christine with sensitive, delicate features, trim figure, and with bands of sleek hair parted above her smooth forehead; Alison tall, slender, girlishly young, her hair inclined to be rebellious, eyes honest and fearless, eyebrows a little darker than her hair, and raised a trifle at the inner corners, giving her a look of innocent surprise, mouth not too small, and often smiling. The casual observer would have called Christine, with her regular features, the prettier, but in Alison’s expressive face her friends found a greater charm.

Leaving Christine to read the letter she danced out of the door and called Lolita who, nothing loath, assisted in the milking which was by no means an ordinary process. Around the small pen, where a few calves were kept, gathered the anxious and eager mothers who lowed soft encouragement to their impatient babies, restlessly running up and down behind the rails. As Alison let down the bars one after another of the cows lumbered in, while the girl kept up a constant talk: “There now, Daffy, you are in too much of a hurry. So now, Bess, that’s not your calf. Look out, Brindle, you are not to treat me with such disrespect; if you don’t look out I shall be run over, you clumsy thing.” As soon as the calves had fairly commenced their evening meal, Alison, with a deft swing of a lasso, encircled the horns of one of the cows, and Lolita made the other end of the rope fast to the neck of the calf, who was thus drawn beyond reach of the source of supply. Alison then speedily milked about a pint into the earthen vessel she held, after which the yearning calf was allowed to wriggle back to its mother. This process was repeated till each cow had contributed her proper amount of milk for the needs of the family, each supply being separately conveyed to a bucket set outside the fence. This method, generally employed upon the ranchos, was one against which Alison constantly inveighed, so that her brother promised if possible he would have a cow specially “gentled” for her, although a Texas cow was not willing to stand until her calf had been allowed to receive a first share of her milk.

John’s stock had now greatly increased and his rancho was becoming one of the most prosperous ones in the county. To be sure, his neighbors complained that he was too energetic, and that he would never hold out at the rate he had begun. Moreover he was thought to be a trifle particular in his conduct, and his sisters were sometimes called “stuck up,” yet this was simply because they were not content to be shiftless, and despised the makeshifts which were considered good enough by most of their neighbors. “I cannot see,” said Christine, to whose ears some of these reports had come, “why we are considered to hold our heads so high simply because our gate is on its hinges and because we have light bread when we can get it. I suppose we ought to tie the gate together with a bit of rope and disdain flour.”

“One would think that with so old a civilization as Mexico’s,” said John, “this part of the country ought to be far ahead of the other states, but though we are spared many of the experiences of other pioneers who have gone into the actual wilderness, we have to overcome traditions and replace indolence with energy before we can develop as we should. Texas will be a rough country for many a year, but she will work out of that and into a greater refinement in time. She is too much the refuge for outlaws, and offers too great inducements to those who want to live an irresponsible life for her to attain to great heights at once; we must give her time, Tina.”

“Oh, I’ll give her all the time she wants, so far as I am concerned, so long as I am not interfered with, but I must say I do not care to be criticised for maintaining mere respectability.”

John laughed. “Just jog along your own gait, child; that’s what I mean to do. Let them talk; who cares? Don’t you suppose we are respected if we are criticised? All I care for is to do my duty and to make the best of my opportunities.”

“And I am sure,” Alison put in, “it is something to be an example, and that we are to more than one. I am sure Ira takes you for a model and Lolita imitates us so far as she is able.”

“That’s the way to talk,” returned John.

Ira and Louisa were now happily settled in their home where Ira was dutifully “gittin’ broke in,” as he expressed it, and if he “bucked” once in a while it was because he wasn’t “used to being driven double.” He would get down to his paces in time, he promised, and in fact it was his best intention to take John as an example. He had so far succeeded as to make the old Sparks place look fairly well. To be sure the capable Louisa’s hand showed in the appearance of the house and its immediate surroundings, but, since Ira was inexperienced rather than lazy, it was supposed that in time he would respond to the expectations of so good a wife, whose favorite song of the chirping cricket he might hope to hear for many a day by his own fireside.

As a natural consequence of Blythe’s long illness when he was the object of their mutual concern, a greater intimacy had been formed between the Rosses and the Van Dorns. Nearly every day Blythe rode over to see his friends, and at least once a week the Rosses accompanied him home for an afternoon with his mother and sisters. Christine had found in Ellen Wilkinson a congenial companion, while John had taken a fancy to the straightforward young Englishman, her husband. As for Alison she was always ready to tease Blythe or to exchange girlish confidences with Laura.

One afternoon in May Alison and Christine started over to the Van Dorns’. It was warm, sunny weather and the girls rode slowly, Alison mounted upon Chico and Christine upon another little mustang which her brother had given her in place of Hero, whose loss she still mourned. “We may as well stop and have a word with Hannah Maria,” said Alison, as they drew near the line of worm fence which partly surrounded Bud’s property. “She never will forgive us if we pass her by, for you know she will be sure to see us.”

Christine agreed and they turned towards the house. Hannah Maria’s dun-colored sunbonnet was visible before they reached the gate, which hung by one hinge and had to be lifted and set back in place each time it was opened. It was a peculiarity of Hannah Maria’s that her every-day costume was always of an indefinite dust color, and that she blazed forth royally only on high days and holidays. An odd dun-colored calico always clothed her plump form, and her sunbonnet was of the same piece. Where she managed to secure just this shade of brown was always a mystery to the girls. It matched her hair which was invariably wisped up in a tight knot at the back of her head. As usual she was sitting on the door-step occupied with her snuff stick, for she shared the habit of many of her neighbors who were devoted to the practice known as rubbing snuff. In a weedy flower-bed under the window several hens had scratched hollows in which they were comfortably resting; three cats were curled up asleep on a bench; a couple of hounds stretched their lank lengths upon the gallery floor. Alison, with her whip, poked a curly-tailed piglet which lay across her path, and which went off with a resentful squeal at being thus ruthlessly routed.

Hannah Maria looked up from the shade of her sunbonnet as the girls came up. “Now I just knew somebody’d come this afternoon,” she said, giving a slap to the hound which, roused by the intruders, began to growl. “Quit that, Pete, don’t you know yer friends when ye see ’em?” she interjected. “Come up, gals. I reckon it’s cooler on the gallery, but I always set on the steps when I’m by myself; it seems as if it wasn’t so lonesome and then I don’t miss anybody goin’ by. You’ll stay an’ take supper, won’t ye?”

“We promised the Van Dorns that we would be there,” Christine told her as she sat down on the end of the bench unoccupied by the cats. “How are you all, Hannah Maria?” she asked.

“Tollable, Tiny, jest tollable. Bud had a misery in his haid this mornin’ an’ I got the indisgesting or somethin’. I wisht you’d stay; Bud’ll be real put out.”

“Where is Bud?”

“Oh, I don’t know; he’s round somewhars. Seems to me he said he was goin’ to Lon’s; mebbe he didn’t go. I’ll call him. Bud, oh, Bud!” she shrilled out, without moving from her place.

“Aren’t you warm in that sunbonnet, Hannah Maria?” asked Alison, taking off her hat and fanning herself with it.

“Law, I don’t know. It keeps the sun outen my eyes; that’s why I w’ar it so constant.” Certainly it was not to save her complexion, thought Alison, for that was of an unhealthy sallowness and Hannah Maria continually complained of “indisgesting.” “I suppose you-all ain’t got ary news,” said she, replacing her snuff stick in the corner of her mouth.

“No, except that we have had a letter from Neal,” Alison answered.

“Law, did you ever?”

“Hadn’t you heard that? I thought John would have told Bud.”

“Well, he didn’t, not that I’ve heard of. Ain’t thet jest like a man? What did Neal hev to say? I declar’ I’m glad you came. My nose been a-eetchin’ all day.” She put up her hand to that small snub member to give it a vigorous rubbing. “Did ye bring the letter along?”

“No, John has it. I can tell you what was in it,” said Alison, and she gave an outline of Neal’s news.

“He’s a real nice feller,” said Hannah Maria approvingly. “I wisht he’d pick out some good gal when he gits back. I wonder how Laury Van Dorn would suit him, but then I reckon he’d be cuttin’ out John if he took her. I was jest settin’ here a-thinkin’ how nice it would be fer Allie to take Blythe and Johnny to hev Laury so they could hev a double weddin’. We ain’t never had a double weddin’ about hyar. When John and Laury goin’ to fix it up?”

“Why, I am sure I don’t know that they ever will,” said Alison. “John likes Laura; so do we all, but I don’t think he has any idea of getting married.”

“Well, I certainly do like to see young folks git jined,” drawled Hannah Maria sentimentally. “I like to watch ’em smilin’ at each other like they was happy as turkle-doves. Now whar was it you tol’ me Neal was? I declar’ I fergit.”

“At Puebla,” replied Christine. “They seem to be taking a rest there, and John says the men deserve it after all they have done in two months. They have captured as large a number of prisoners as they have men in their own army, and have taken many of the most strongly fortified places on the continent. Next thing they will be in Mexico.”

“That they will,” broke in Alison, “and Neal will bring me something from there because I was the one who answered his letter.”

“Oh, that is why you wrote, was it?” said Christine. “Loaves and fishes, was it? I thought you did not seem averse to the task.”

Alison laughed. “That is where I got ahead of you.”

“He will bring me something, too,” said Christine. “See if he doesn’t.”

“Oh, of course,” pouted Alison; “you think that because you are the older.”

“You’re taller than Tiny, now,” said Hannah Maria. “You certainly have shot up mightily in the past year. It’s been that sence Neal lef’, ain’t it?”

“It is just about a year; he left with John.”

“So he did. Reub and Iry went ahead of ’em, I remember. Well, I’m sure I hope they’ll git back safe. You ain’t a-goin’?”

The girls insisted that they could not stay longer and in spite of Hannah Maria’s protests, took their departure, leaving the good soul still sitting on the step comfortably rubbing snuff, the hounds which had moved at the leave-taking again dropping down heavily on the floor, and the piglet complacently grunting in a mud-hole by the gate.

By contrast to the Haleys’ the Van Dorns’ neat house seemed doubly attractive. The gallery here was enclosed by slatted shutters which protected it from the sun, providing a cool and pleasant retreat. One of Blythe’s dogs lay outside, but after lifting his head and perceiving friends he simply thwacked his tail upon the step and went to sleep again. The fence here kept out all visiting hens, and the little garden smiled in its luxuriance of bloom. Vines clambered over the house, and a huge oak at a little distance rustled pleasantly and cast long shadows across the grass. From its thick foliage a mocking-bird sent forth a few liquid notes, for the day’s heat was over and the darkness, which in this latitude shut down suddenly, would soon invite the night bird’s song.

Mrs. Van Dorn and Laura were sitting in the gallery, work-baskets by their sides. Both looked restfully cool and content. Laura’s neat muslin gown was fresh and crisp; a tidy little apron protected it. Her brown hair was smoothly arranged and when she lifted her clear gray eyes to see who entered, a smile broke over her face which made her fairly pretty. Every one said that Laura’s smile was her greatest charm and indeed it did so light up an otherwise rather plain face that one forgot her nose was large, her complexion far from good and her chin sharp.

“You did get here,” she said, jumping up and coming forward. “I told Blythe you had promised. Where is he? Putting up the horses?”

“No; we staked them out ourselves.”

“Why, didn’t he meet you? He said he was going over for you.”

“We stopped at Hannah Maria’s for a few minutes, and that is how he must have missed us.”

“Too bad,” said Mrs. Van Dorn. “I am sorry you missed an escort. Come in, girls, and cool off. Ellen will be here in a minute, Christine. Isn’t it real summer weather to-day? I suppose at home the roses are only beginning to bloom, and see what an array of flowers we have for May. The prairie is fairly carpeted. Did Hannah Maria have any gossip for you?”

“No. She appeared to be in rather a pensive mood,” said Christine. “I often wonder what she thinks about as she sits there by the hour with her snuff stick.”

“Such an unpleasant habit,” remarked Mrs. Van Dorn. “I never knew any one addicted to it till I came down here, and as for the way men use tobacco it is simply beyond expression. Henry was actually forced to build a man’s room and a separate gallery, for we could not give up this one; it would not have been decent at the end of a week. How do you stand it?”

“We don’t have much trouble,” said Christine. “The men generally stay out of doors in summer and in winter they take themselves to the man’s room, so only our particular acquaintances expect to be received in the gallery. Ah, there comes Ellen. I want to see her chickens.” And Christine joined Mrs. Wilkinson in the yard. The lot surrounding the house was penned off into small and large enclosures, shaded by trees; a vegetable garden was in the height of its glory, and in the chicken yard clucked and cackled so large a number of hens as spoke well for the family supply of eggs and poultry.

“I can’t see why Blythe doesn’t come,” said Mrs. Van Dorn to Alison. “I am sure he has had time to go and come back.”

“Perhaps he, too, stopped at the Haleys’,” said Alison. “Hannah Maria would not let him go by if she could help it.”

“That is quite true.” So this was accepted as the excuse for Blythe’s absence, although supper was on the table and all were ready to sit down before the young man appeared with John.

“I met Blythe just as he was coming away from our place,” said John, “and he persuaded me to ride back with him.”

Blythe looked embarrassed and murmured something about its being too warm to ride very fast, but it was not till later in the evening that Alison discovered the cause of his tardy appearance.