Dixie Martin, the Girl of Woodford's Cañon

“No—o,” he confessed. “It isn’t. I’m going away for one month, Josephine. Not because I want to test my love for you,—I’m sure of that,—but I want you to have time to think—and to be sure.” Then he added, “Am I presuming too much when I infer that perhaps you would want to consider caring for me?”

The girl-teacher answered frankly. “Until to-night I have thought of you merely as a comrade, a pal whom I enjoy more than I ever did any one else. But perhaps you are right. If you go away, we can tell better whether it is merely propinquity or love. Good-night.”

Frederick Edrington walked slowly back to the cabin, which was dark except for a dim light burning in the room that he now shared with Ken.

He would go to Colorado and inspect some work that was going on there, he decided. He had promised to send in a report of it before spring, and this would afford him that opportunity.

The little Martins were surprised and sorry to hear that their guest was leaving them. “I’ll be back in the spring,” he told them.

“That’s only a month away,” Dixie replied at the hour of parting.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
AN EVENTFUL SPRING

Spring came, and every mountain cañon held a rushing torrent. The sky was gloriously blue after the long months that it had been leaden-gray, and flowers began to appear in the crevices soon after the snow was gone.

Joy in the heart of the young school-teacher sang with the returning birds. Even the small Martin children seemed to be eagerly expectant.

“I feel as though something ever so nice is going to happen, Miss Bayley, don’t you?” Dixie looked up glowingly from the slate on which she was trying to solve a difficult sum.

Her beloved friend and teacher stood at her side. These two had remained after school, that the older Martin girl might catch up with Ken in mathematics.

“I’d heaps rather write rhymes or sing songs or play on my violin,” Dixie confided when at last the slate had been washed clean and replaced in the desk.

“I’m glad,” Miss Bayley said as she pinned on her hat, preparing to depart. “You will derive much more joy from the poetry and the music, but arithmetic, too, must be mastered, if you are to go to college.”

The girl looked brightly up at her teacher. “I’d have to be living in a fairy-tale to have that happen,” she declared. Then laughingly she confessed, “There are only six pennies in the sock under my mattress, and you can’t think how hard I have tried to save all winter. However, I might call them a nest-egg toward the future education of the four Martins.”

The gold-brown eyes of the girl glowed from beneath the wide brim of her rather shabby hat, but the young teacher saw not the hat but only the radiant young face.

“Dixie,” she exclaimed suddenly, “this is the hour that the stage arrives. Let’s walk down the cañon road a little way and see if it is coming. Shall we?”

“I’d love to!” was the glad reply. “And maybe we’ll find some wild flowers.” Then, when they had started swinging along together, the younger girl asked, looking up at her taller companion, “Miss Bayley, are you expecting some one in particular to come to-day?”

The rosy flush in the teacher’s face puzzled Dixie. She had not thought that a romance might exist between Ken’s old friend and the young woman whom she so loved.

“No, dear, no one in particular,” was the quiet reply, and it was true, for although Miss Bayley had received a letter stating that Frederick Edrington would soon be through with his work of inspection, he had not said when he would revisit the cañon.

They had reached a high point, and Dixie had clambered up on a peak of rocks, that she might have a wider vision. Shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, she looked down into the valley.

“Surely there is something coming,” she called gleefully to the waiting teacher. “I can see it moving among the pine trees.” Then, clapping her hands, she added joyfully: “It is the stage! It’s out in the clearing, and now it’s beginning to climb. I do believe it will pass here in half an hour or so.”

Miss Bayley pressed her hand on her heart to try to still its rapid beating. “I can’t understand it at all,” she thought, “but I seem to feel sure that some one is coming on the stage, some one whom I shall be glad to see.” Never before had a half hour seemed so long to the two who spent the time searching for flowers among the rocks. Only a few, blue as the sky, had been found, when Dixie stood suddenly alert, listening. “Hear that rumble?” she sang out. “It’s the stage just around Old Indian Rock.” She pointed to an outjutting boulder below them at the turn in the cañon road. Breathlessly they waited. There were four passengers in the coach, and one was an elderly woman, who, handsomely dressed, sat very erect, and the expression on her proud, aristocratic face assured the two by the roadside that, whoever she might be, the errand that had brought her to the mountains was most displeasing to her.

The elderly stage-driver waved the hand that held the whip, and beamed down good-naturedly. The young teacher and Dixie smiled and nodded, but although the occupants of the coach must have seen them, they were not at all interested.

The girl heard Miss Bayley sigh. “Dear teacher,” she said softly, “won’t you come on down to our cabin for supper? There is to be cottage cheese that you like so much, with nice yellow cream on it.”

Dixie was convinced that her companion had been expecting some one who had not come.

Josephine Bayley laughed merrily. “You dear little tempter,” she said, “of course I’ll go.” And so hand in hand they descended the trail that led under the great old pines and down to the picturesque log cabin.

Although it was but five o’clock, the little mother at once began to prepare the evening meal. Ken and Jimmy-Boy were out milking the goat, and Carol was over at the Valley Ranch.

“May I set the table?” the teacher inquired.

Dixie nodded. “Let’s use the kept-for-company dishes to-night,” she suggested.

“But you promised long ago that you wouldn’t call me company,” Miss Bayley protested.

“I know I did,” Dixie smiled over the big yellow bowl which held the foamy cheese, and into which she was pouring rich cream. “I don’t understand the least bit why, but somehow I feel as if to-day were an extra occasion, sort of a party.”

“Perhaps because it’s the first real spring day that we’ve had,” Miss Bayley announced, as she opened the old walnut sideboard and brought forth the best china. “Your mother liked beautiful things, didn’t she, Dixie? This pattern is lovely.”

The girl looked up brightly. “I like it,” she replied; then added simply, “I suppose it was hard for Mother to live in a cabin, for all her life had been spent in an old colonial mansion in the South. Our great-aunt, Mrs. James Haddington-Allen, lives there, or, at least, I guess she does. She’s never answered any of our letters, but she always writes something on the envelopes before she returns them, so of course she does receive them.”

“Have you written to her lately?” Miss Bayley was setting the table as she asked the question. She was surprised at the decided tone in which the small girl replied: “No, I haven’t. I never wrote her but once, and that was after we children were left all alone. Our mother had often written, but her letters were always returned unopened.”

“Mrs. James Haddington-Allen must be a hard-hearted old dragoness,” the girl-teacher thought; but aloud she commented, “If your great-aunt could but see you four children, I am sure she would love you all.”

“She might love Carol because she is beautiful, like our mother, and she’d like Jimmy-Boy too, but Ken and I are regular Martins, so probably our great-aunt wouldn’t like us much.” To the surprise of the listener, there was a sob in the girl’s voice as she continued, “I’d heaps rather our great-aunt would never come, for probably she’d want to take Carol and Jimmy-Boy to her fine Southern home, but she wouldn’t want Ken or me. I—I just couldn’t live without Carol and Jimmy-Boy. I couldn’t. I couldn’t!”

Miss Bayley went toward the girl and took her in her arms. “My dear child,” she said tenderly, “before I’d let that happen, I would open up my old home in New York on the Hudson and adopt all four of you.”

Dixie smiled through her tears. “Goodness!” she said, springing away and wiping her eyes on the towel by the kitchen pump, “the cheese is salty enough as ’tis. I mustn’t spill any tears in it.”

Dixie had not grasped the meaning of the words she had heard. To her, Miss Bayley was just a poor young woman who had to teach school for a living, and a home in New York on the Hudson presented no picture to the girl who had always lived in the mountains, and who had never been farther away than Genoa. But to Miss Bayley those words had meant much. Why had she never thought of it before, she wondered. If Frederick Edrington never came back to her, if he had found, while away from her, that he had been mistaken, that he did not really care, still her life need not be empty.

She would go back to New York and take these four children with her. The great old salon that had been in darkness since the death of her parents would ring once again with laughter and song. Then when her brother Tim came back from his three years at sea, there would be a happy home waiting for him. The picture delighted the girl-teacher, and she began to sing as she placed the supper dishes on the best table-cloth.

Carol came in, bringing a bunch of early flowers from a sunny, sheltered garden on the Valley Ranch.

“Oh, how pretty!” Miss Bayley exclaimed. “They are just what we need for the middle of the table.”

The younger girl looked mystified. “Is there going to be a party? Is somebody extra coming?”

“No, dear, just we five,” Miss Bayley began, but the small girl interrupted with, “But, teacher, you’ve put out six plates and everything.”

“So I have!” The girl-teacher actually blushed. But before she could explain, even to herself, why she had done this, Dixie called excitedly, “Carol, skip to the door and see who’s coming. Ken’s waving his cap and shouting to some one coming down the cañon trail.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
THE UNEXPECTED GUEST

Dixie, a mixing-spoon in her hand, and Carol, still holding the flowers, darted to the open door and peered up the trail that led toward the highway.

Ken had placed the pail of milk on the ground and was racing toward the newcomer, shouting his joy. Jimmy, not to be outdone, was hopping up and down, uttering shrill cries of glee, though he had not the least idea who might be coming.

Miss Bayley stood by the table, her hand pressed to her heart. All day there had been within her a prophetic feeling of some joy in store for her. She listened breathlessly until she heard the name that Dixie announced. “It’s Mr. Edrington, as sure as anything!” she called in delight. Although the young engineer was Ken’s particular friend, the other three Martins loved him dearly.

The young man threw his knapsack to the ground and held out both arms to receive all four of them. Even Dixie, unconscious of the mixing-spoon that she held, ran down the trail to meet him. The young teacher alone stayed within the cabin.

“Oh-ee, Uncle Ed, but we’re glad you’ve come home,” Carol said. That was the name the young man had suggested that they call him.

“Home,” he thought. “What a wonderful word that is!” He had never really had a home, for, although his aunt had seemed to care for him, she had been too nervous to have children around, and so he had been sent to a military academy, and from then, until he became a full-fledged engineer, nine months of every year he had been in a school of some sort, and even the three months of vacation had been spent in hotels at fashionable resorts. This log cabin in the Nevada mountains had been more of a home than he had ever before known.

“Where’s Miss Bayley?” Carol asked, looking back at the open door in surprise. “Why didn’t she come out?”

The girl-teacher heard. She couldn’t have explained to herself why she had remained in hiding when she so longed to greet her good friend.

“Here I am,” she called gayly, appearing at that moment on the porch. With a glad exclamation the young engineer leaped forward, both hands outstretched. “Josephine,” he said in a low voice, “have you decided? Did you miss me?”

Miss Bayley had become mistress of her emotions. “Of course we all missed you,” she said, looking frankly into the fine, gray eyes that told her so much. Then she added, turning to the older Martin girl, “Dear, hadn’t we better have supper now?” Then, to the younger, “You see, Carol, I did well to set out a sixth plate.”

The young man smiled as he followed the young woman indoors, and began to wash at the kitchen pump, as he had been wont to do in the days when he was one of the family, for, try as she might to appear indifferent, Josephine Bayley’s manner and expression had assured him that his love was returned.

Such a merry supper followed. Mr. Edrington had many an adventure to relate. He had met interesting and queer characters in the Rockies, where he had been inspecting the putting-through of a tunnel.

The meal was half over when Dixie suddenly thought of something. “Mr. Edrington,” she exclaimed, “there was a very fine-looking old lady on the stage-coach to-night. I forgot to mention, it. Your coming sort of drove all my other thoughts away. Do you think that maybe it might be your aunt?”

To the surprise of the two older Martin children, the young man beamed happily upon them. “I hope it is!” he declared. Then, reaching out his strong brown hand, he placed it on the slender white one that was lying on the table near him. “If it is my aunt, then without delay I shall be able to introduce to her my future wife, Josephine Bayley.”

Children take wonderful things quite as a matter of course. Why not, since they can believe in fairies?

“Oh! Oh! I am so glad! Then we can call our dear teacher Aunt Josephine, can’t we?” eagerly asked glowing-eyed Dixie.

That night as the young couple walked up the cañon road together, Frederick Edrington for the first time told of the fortune that his father had left him.

“I am glad that I have it, for your sake,” he said to the girl at his side, “for it will enable me to give you many luxuries. Whatever things you have desired through the years, now you shall have.”

“Thank you Frederick,” the girl replied, realizing fully for the first time that her fiancé believed her to be a poor young person who had to work for a living. As they passed the inn, they could look into the brightly-lighted parlor. There they saw several people, but only one was near enough to the window to be recognized.

“It is my aunt,” the young man said, “and I suspect that Marlita Arden is with her.”

At the doorstep of the cabin they paused. The young man held out his hand. “Josephine,” he said, “will you go with me in the morning to the inn, that I may introduce to my aunt and her friends the sweetest little woman in the world, who is soon to be my wife?”

The girl-teacher could not have told why she replied, “But, Frederick, your aunt will be so disappointed because you are to marry some one who does not belong to her world, some one who is obscure and—”

Earnestly the young man interrupted: “It is for me to say what manner of maid I shall marry; but, dear, if you would rather not go,—if it will place you in an unpleasant position,—I will not ask you to accompany me. I will go alone.”

The girl looked up at him radiantly, and there was an amused expression in her lovely eyes that he could not understand.

“I shall be glad to go, Frederick,” she said. “I’ll be ready early. Good-night.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CLEARING UP MYSTERIES

While Josephine Bayley prepared her breakfast the next morning, every now and then she paused to laugh gleefully. Was she doing wrong to deceive the fine man who loved her so dearly? And yet, after all, she had not deceived him. He had never once asked her who her father had been. He had merely jumped to the conclusion that she was poor because she was teaching school in Woodford’s Cañon. After all, that was a natural inference.

He had completely forgotten, or so it seemed, that on the first day of their acquaintance Josephine had mentioned that she had known Marlita Arden. The truth was that Frederick had not forgotten. He had, however, satisfied his own curiosity as to the manner in which the two girls had met. Marlita had a younger sister, Gladys Louise, and, as he thought of her, he recalled that she had a governess named Josephine. He had never seen her, but since his Josephine knew Marlita intimately, she probably had lived in their home as governess to the younger Arden girl.

As the young engineer walked toward the cabin beyond the inn at nine that morning, with each stride his decision grew stronger. His aunt, he knew, would scorn any girl who earned her own living, but she would be especially rude, he was convinced, to a young woman who had been governess in the home of one of her friends.

After all, perhaps it would be kinder not to take Josephine Bayley with him when he went to see his aunt at the inn. He could announce his intention to marry whom he would, and let the matter rest there, but, to his surprise, when he told the girl he loved that he wished to spare her possible humiliation, she looked so truly disappointed that he exclaimed: “Why, Josephine, you don’t want to go, do you? I thought you were merely accompanying me because I had requested it.”

She smiled at him, and in her expression there was no trace of timidity. “I’m not the least bit afraid of dragoness aunts,” she assured him. Then she added, “If you’ll be seated a moment, I’ll don my best spring hat and coat.”

Five minutes later the girl emerged from her porch room, and the young man leaped to his feet, gazing as though at a vision.

“How beautiful you are in that silvery gray,” he said.

The small hat was wreathed with crushed roses, and the cloak, of soft clinging material, was cut in the latest fashion.

At another time the young man might have been puzzled, but his mind was too full of one thing just then to admit of questionings.

“I’m glad you look so nicely,” he confided as they started out, “for even though mine aunt will, of course, spurn me for not wedding the girl of her choice, in her heart of hearts she will have to agree that I have chosen the more beautiful one for my bride.”

The color in Josephine’s cheeks deepened, although it may have been a reflection of the rose-tulle lining of her hat.

In the meantime the strangers at the inn had inquired if Frederick Edrington were staying there.

Although Mr. Enterprise Twiggly well knew the young man whom Ken called Uncle Ed, he did not associate the two names, and replied that he knew “no such person.”

Mrs. Edrington and her companions were in the parlor of the inn, awaiting the coming of the stage, when the two young people arrived. Josephine requested that she be permitted to remain in the outer office while Frederick went alone to meet his aunt.

The four occupants of the plainly furnished room turned as the door opened, and the young engineer was somewhat surprised to see that one of them was no other than Lord Dunsbury. The two girls were Marlita Arden and her younger sister, Gladys Louise. Frederick regretted this, since his Josephine undoubtedly had been her governess. Perhaps the girl he loved ought to be told to slip back to her cabin home, that she might escape whatever humiliation would be in store for her, were she to meet the snobbish Ardens.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” said Marlita.

“More than pleased I assure you,” rather coldly added the young Englishman.

Frederick crossed the room to where his aunt was standing, and spoke with her for several moments. The others, watching, could see the angry flush mounting to the face of the older woman. Then, unable to listen longer in silence, she turned toward the curious group and exclaimed: “My nephew informs me that he is engaged to marry some girl he has met here in the mountains. A woodcutter’s daughter, I suppose. Being well acquainted with his stubbornness, I know that he will do as he wishes in the matter.”

Marlita shrugged her silk-clad shoulders as she said, “Do you know, Aunt Delia, I really would like to see the mountain maid who has won the heart of friend Frederick.” Then, turning to the young man, she added with a tantalizing smile, “However, I doubt if he would care to exhibit his rural fiancée.” This remark had the effect desired.

“You are wrong Marlita,” Frederick declared vehemently. “I should be proud to present my future wife to the queen of England, were that possible. If you will be seated, I will soon return with the young woman about whom we are speaking.”

It was a tense moment for the two who were most interested. The aunt moved to the window and looked out. Marlita leaned against the mantle, tapping her fingers nervously thereon.

It was not very complimentary to her that Frederick Edrington should prefer a mountaineer’s daughter to the heiress of Colonel Arden’s millions.

They all glanced toward the closed door when they heard Frederick returning. Gladys Louise was the only one pleased with the little drama that was being enacted. How she did hope that Fred’s fiancée would prove to be the picturesque type of mountain maid that she had read about in romantic stories! Perhaps, though, they were only to be found in Switzerland.

However, there was no further time for speculating. The door was opening, and in another moment they would know.

Josephine Bayley had never looked lovelier than she did when she entered the parlor of the inn, her head held high. Although her lips were not smiling, surely an amused expression was lurking in the depths of her clear hazel eyes.

Before Frederick Edrington could introduce his fiancée to his aunt, Gladys Louise, with a glad cry of recognition, leaped forward, both hands outstretched. “Oh, you dear, darling Josephine!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell us where you disappeared to when you left so suddenly?”

And so the young engineer’s surmise had been correct. His fiancée had been this impulsive girl’s governess. What would his aunt say? He glanced at Marlita, to see how she would welcome one who had lived in her home in a paid capacity. The proud girl’s expression was hard to understand.

Then, to his surprise, Josephine made the first advance. Crossing the room, she held out her hand as she said: “Marlita, dear, please try to be glad for my happiness. You and I were room-mates at boarding-school, and now—”

She said no more, for the girl to whom she had spoken drew herself away coldly. “You are not honest, Josephine Bayley,” she said, “posing as a woodcutter’s daughter when—”

The young teacher shook her head. “I have not posed,” she replied quietly. “Frederick has asked no questions concerning my family.” Then, again holding out her hand, she pleaded, “Marlita, won’t you be my friend?”

But the girl whom she addressed tossed her head and left the room, beckoning her sister and Lord Dunsbury to follow, which they did.

When the three were alone, Frederick, whose astonishment had seemed to render him speechless, apologized. “Pardon me, Aunt Delia,” he said, “permit me to introduce to you my fiancée.”

“We’ll waive the formality of an introduction,” replied the woman, who, through half-closed eyes, had been watching the little drama.

Then, turning to the girl in gray, she asked, “Are you the daughter of William Wallace Bayley whose summer home is in the Orange Hills, and whose winter home is in New York on the Hudson?”

“I am,” was the quiet reply.

It was Frederick Edrington’s turn to be amazed, but his aunt was continuing: “I thought so. With my former husband, Mr. James Haddington-Allen, I frequently visited your home when you were a very small child.”

The young school-teacher stepped forward, as she asked eagerly: “You—are you Mrs. James Haddington-Allen? Frederick has always spoken of you as Mrs. Edrington.”

“Naturally, since that is my present name. Mr. Allen died long ago, and two years later I married Frederick’s uncle. But pray, Miss Bayley, why has the discovery of my former name occasioned you so much concern?”

“Because you are also the aunt of the four children named Martin who are our protégés here in the mountains,” Frederick began. But the face of the older woman hardened. “You are mistaken,” she said. “The children of whom you speak are related to my first husband, but in no way to me; and, since he is dead, I see no reason why I should look up his poor relatives, and, what is more, I shall not do so.”

The young man’s voice was almost severe when he asked, “You knew of their need, then?”

“Some banker wrote me last year concerning these children, and I replied that I was not at all interested in hearing about them. However, I thought the name of their town was Genoa.” Then, turning to the school-teacher, who was finding it very hard to listen quietly, the older woman said, “Miss Bayley, if you will give up this ridiculous notion of teaching school and will come with me, I will forgive you both and take you into my home, but mind, I wish never again to hear the name of Martin.”

“I thank you for your offer, but I have made other plans,” was Josephine’s reply. “When the spring term is finished, I shall return to my New York home and take with me the four Martin children.”

“Then, as there is nothing more to be said, I will bid you good-morning.” Haughtily saying this, the aunt left the room, and did not even glance at her second husband’s nephew.

“Shall we tell the children?” was Josephine’s first question as they left the inn.

“No,” Frederick replied. “Mrs. Edrington is their aunt only by marriage, as she is mine.” Then he added, “Dearest, what a wonderful home you and I are to have with such nice kiddies in it.”

“Aren’t we?” the girl smiled up at him. “We shall be happy just because we are all together.” Then she continued, “I want to make those four little Martins the happiest children in all the world.”

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

• Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
• Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
• Moved promotional material to the end of the text.
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