Judith of the Plains

Mary had been a member of the Yellett household for something over a week, and the intellectual conquest of her Brobdingnag pupils seemed as hopeless as on that first day. School seemed to be regarded by them as a sort of neutral territory, admirably adapted for the settlement of long-standing grudges, the pleasant exchange of practical jokes, peace and war conferences; also as a mart of trade, where fire-arms, knives, bear and elk teeth might be swapped with a greater expenditure of time and conversation than under the maternal eye. “Teacher,” as she was understood and accepted by the house of Yellett, undoubtedly filled a long-felt want. Presiding over a school of six-imp power for a week, however, had humbled Mary to the point of seriously considering a letter to the home government, meekly asking for return transportation. But this was before feminine wile had struggled with feminine vanity, and feminine wile won the day. School still continued to open at six, from which early and unusual hour it continued, without recess or interruption, till noon, when dinner pleasantly invaded the scholastic monotony, to the infinite relief of all parties concerned.

Mary had dismissed her pupils a few minutes before the usual hour, on a particularly bad day, that she might rally her scattered faculties and present something of a countenance to the watchful eye of Mrs. Yellett. Every element of humor had vanished from the situation. The inverted tub was no longer a theme for merriment in her diary; home-life without a house was no longer a diverting epigram; she had closed her eyes that she might not see the mountains in all their grandeur. In her present mood of abject homesickness the white-capped peaks were part and parcel of the affront. With head sunk in the palms of her hands, and elbows resting on the inverted tub, Mary presented a picture of woe, in which the wicked element of comedy was not wholly lacking. Looking up suddenly, she saw Judith Rodney advancing. The first glimpse of her put Mary in a more rational mood.

“I’m so glad to see you! Behold my class-room appointments! They may seem a trifle novel, but, for that matter, so are my pupils,” began Mary, determining to present the same front to Judith that she had to Mrs. Yellett. But Judith was not to be put off. She looked into Mary’s eyes and did not relax her gaze until she was rewarded with an answering twinkle. Then Mary laughed long and merrily, the first good, hearty laugh since the beginning of her teaching.

“Tell me,” Mary broke out, suddenly, “or the suspense will kill me, who wrote that lovely letter—on such good quality Irish linen, too? Snob that I was, it was the letter that did it.”

“So you have your suspicions that it was not a home product?”

“You didn’t do it, did you?”

“Oh no; though I was asked, and so was Miss Wetmore, I believe. Of course poor Mrs. Yellett had no other recourse, as I suppose you know. I chose to be disobliging that time, and was sorry for it afterwards—sorry when I heard about the letter that really went! Do you find the sheep-wagon so very dreadful?”

“I thought,” laughed Mary, “that it was going to be like a picture I saw in a magazine, Mexican hammocks, grass cushions, and a lady pouring tea from a samovar; instead it was the sheep-wagon and ‘Do you sleep light or dark?’ There is Mrs. Yellett calling us to dinner. Shall I have a chance to talk to you alone afterwards?”

“I’ve come all the way from Dax’s to see you,” explained Judith, with characteristic directness. “We have all the afternoon.”

“Really!” Mary displayed a flash of school-girl enthusiasm. “I feel as if I could almost bear the scenery.”

Presumably Judith was a favorite guest of the Yellett household, and not without reason. She took her place in the circle about the homely, steaming fare, with an ease and grace that suggested that dining off the ground was an every-day affair with her, and chairs and tables undreamed-of luxuries. Mary envied her ready tact. Why could she not meet these people with Judith’s poise—bring out the best of them, as she did? The boys talked readily and naturally—there was even a flavor to what they said. As for herself, try never so conscientiously and she would be confronted by frank amusement or shy distrust. Even “paw” beamed at Judith appreciatively as he consumed his meal with infinite, toothless labor. The Spartan family became almost sprightly under the pleasantly stimulating influence of its guest.

“What kind of basques are they wearing this summer, Judy?” inquired Mrs. Yellett, regarding her guest’s trim shirt-waist judicially. “I reckon them loose, meal-sack things must be all the go since you and Miss Mary both have ’em; but give me a good, tight-fittin’ basque, every time. How’s any one to know whether you got a figure or not, in a thing that never hits you anywhere?” questioned the matriarch, not without a touch of pride anent her own fine proportions.

“You really ought to have a shirt-waist, Mrs. Yellett. You’ve no idea of the comfort of them, till you’ve worn them.”

“I don’t see but I’ll have to come to it.” Her tone was frankly regretful, as one who feels obliged to follow the behests of fashion, yet, in so doing, sacrifices a cherished ideal. Mary Carmichael choked over her coffee in an abortive attempt to restrain her audible hilarity. Judith, without a trace of amusement, was discussing materials, cut, and buttons; the plainswoman had proved herself the better gentlewoman of the two.

“Get me a spotty calico, white, with a red dot, will you, the next time you’re over to Ervay? Buttons accordin’ to your judgment; but if you could get some white chiny with a red ring, I think they’d match it handsome.” She frowned reflectively. “You’re sure one of them loose, hangy things ’d become me? Then you can bring it over Tuesday, when you come to the hunt.”

“What hunt?” asked Judith, in all simplicity.

“Why, the wolf-hunt. Peter Hamilton come here three days ago and made arrangements for ’em all to have supper here after it was done. ’Lowed there was a young Eastern lady in the party, Miss Colebrooke, who couldn’t wait to meet me. Course you’re goin’, Judy? You’ve plumb forgot it, or somethin’ happened to the messenger. Who ever hyeard tell of anythin’ happenin’ in this yere county ’thout you bein’ the very axle of it?”

Judith had not betrayed her chagrin by the least change of countenance. To the most searching glance every faculty was intent on the shirt-waist with the ringed buttons. Yet both women felt—by a species of telepathy wholly feminine—that Judith was deeply wounded. Loyal Sarah Yellett decided that Hamilton’s guests would get but a scant supper from her if her friend Judith was to be unfavored with an invitation, while Judith, in her own warm heart, resented as deeply as Peter’s slight of herself, his tale of Miss Colebrooke’s impatience to meet Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch’s dominant personality evoked many a smile even from those most deeply conscious of her worth; but it wasn’t like Peter to make a spectacle of his ruggedly honest neighbor. Nevertheless she remarked, coolly:

“I sha’n’t be able to bring your shirt-waist things up Tuesday, I’m afraid, Mrs. Yellett, but I’ll try to bring them towards the end of the week.” Then, with a swift change of subject, “How are the boys getting on with their education, Miss Carmichael?”

The boys looked at Mary out of the corners of their eyes. Their prowess in the field of letters had not been publicly discussed before. Mary Carmichael, emboldened by Judith’s presence, looked at her tormentors with a judicious glance.

“The girls are doing fairly well,” she replied, suppressing the mischief in her eyes, “but the boys, poor fellows, I think something must be the matter with them. Did they ever fall on their heads when they were babies, Mrs. Yellett?”

“Not more than common. All babies fall on their heads; it’s as common as colic.”

“Poor boys!” said Mary, with a manner that suggested they were miles away, rather than within a few feet of her. “Poor boys! I’ve never seen anything like it. They try so hard, too, yet they can make nothing of work that would be play for a child of three. They must have fallen on their heads harder than you supposed, Mrs. Yellett.”

“Perhaps their skulls were a heap frailer than I allowed for at the time,” said Mrs. Yellett, with similar remoteness, yet with a twinkle that showed Mary she understood the situation.

“An infant’s skull doesn’t stand much knocking about, I suppose, Mrs. Yellett?”

“Not a great deal, if there ain’t plenty of vinegar and brown paper handy, and I seldom had such fancy fixings in camp. It’s too bad my boys should be dumb ’n account of a little thing like vinegar and brown paper.”

“Maw, they be dumb as Injuns,” declared Cacta, preening herself, while the Messrs. Yellett reapplied themselves to their dinner with ostentatious interest.

“Well, well!” said Mrs. Yellett; “it be a hard blow to me to know that my sons are lackings; there’s mothers I know as would give vent to their disapp’inted ambition in ways I’d consider crool to the absent-minded. Now hearken, the whole outfit of you! Any offspring of mine now present and forever after holding his peace, who proves feebleminded by the end of the coming week, takes over all the work, labor, and chores of such offspring as demonstrates himself in full possession of his faculties, the matter to be reported on by the gov’ment.”

No sovereign, issuing a proclamation of war, could have assumed a more formidable mien than Mrs. Yellett, squatting erect on the prairie, crowned by her rabbit-skin cap. Mary and Judith, with bland, impassive expressions, noted the effect of the mandate. There was not the faintest symptom of rebellion; each Brobdingnag accepted the matriarch’s edict without a murmur.

With an air of further meditation on the efficacy of brown paper and vinegar at the crucial moment, Mrs. Yellett suddenly observed:

“The lacking, like the dog, may be taught to fetch and carry a book; but to learn it he is unable.”

“Maw, does it say that in the Book of Hiram?” asked Clematis.

“It says that, an’ more, too. It says, ‘The words of the wise are an expense, but the lovin’ parent don’t grudge ’em.’”

Mary Carmichael had noticed, as her alien presence came to be less of a check on Mrs. Yellett’s natural medium of expression, that she was much addicted to a species of quotation with which she impartially adorned her conversation, pointed family morals, or administered an occasional reproof. These family aphorisms were sometimes semi-legal, sometimes semi-scriptural in turn of phrase, and built on a foundation of homely philosophy. They were ascribed to the “Book of Hiram” and never failed of salutary effect in the family circle. But the apt quotations that she had just heard piqued Mary’s curiosity more than before.

“Do you happen to have a copy of the Book of Hiram, Mrs. Yellett?” she asked, in all innocence, supposing that the ‘homely apothegms were to be found at the back of some patent-medicine almanac. Judith Rodney listened in wonder. The question had never before been asked in her hearing.

“I lost mine.” Mrs. Yellett folded her arms and looked at her questioner with something of a challenging mien.

“What a pity! I’ve been so interested in the quotations I’ve heard you make from it.”

“What’s the matter with ’em?” she demanded, pride and apprehension equally commingled.

Judith Rodney rushed to the rescue:

“Nothing is the matter with them, Mrs. Yellett,” she said, with her disarming smile, “except that there is not quite enough to go around.”

The matriarch had the air of gathering herself together for something really worth while. Then she tossed off:

“‘’Tain’t always the quality of the grub that confers the flavor, but sometimes the scarcity thereof.’”

Perhaps it has been the good-fortune of some of us to say a word of praise to an author, while unconscious of his relationship to the book praised. Mark the genial glow radiating from every feature of our auditor! How we feel ourselves anointed with his approval, our good taste and critical faculty how commended! It is a luxury that goes a long way towards mitigating the discomfitures caused by the reverse of this unctuous blunder.

“The Book of Hiram,” said Mrs. Yellett, angling for time, “is a book—it do surprise me that it escapes your notice back East. You ever heard tell of the Book of Mormon?”

Mary assented.

“Well, the Book of Hiram is like the Book of Mormon, only a heap more undefiled. The youngest child can read it without asking a single embarrassing question of its elder, and the oldest sinner can read it without having any fleshly meditations intrudin’ on his piety.”

The Yellett family had by this time dispersed itself for the afternoon, and the matriarch and the two girls started in to clear away the meal and wash the dishes.

“That’s the kind of book for me,” continued Mrs. Yellett, vigorously swishing about in the soapy water. “Story-books don’t count none with me these days. It’s my opinion that things are snarled up a whole lot too much in real life without pestering over the anguish of print folks. Flesh and blood suffering goes without a groan of sympathy from the on-lookers, while novel characters wade to the neck in compassion. I’ve pondered on that a whole lot, seem’ a heap of indifference to every-day calamity, and the way I assay it is like this: print folks has terrible fanciful layouts given to their griefs and worriments by the authors of their being. The trimmings to their troubles is mighty attractive. Don’t you reckon I’d be willin’ to have a spell of trouble if I had a sweeping black velvet dress to do it in? Yes, indeed, I’d be willin’ to turn a few of them shades of anguish, ‘gray’s ashes,’ ‘pale as death,’ and so on, if they’d give me the dress novel ladies seems to have for them special occasions.”

“But you used to like novels, you know you did, Mrs. Yellett,” observed Judith Rodney.

“Yes, I didn’t always entertain these views concernin’ romance. You wouldn’t believe it, but there was a time when I just nacherally went careerin’ round enveloped in fantasies. I was young then—just about the time I married paw. Every novel that was read to me, I mean that I read”—Mrs. Yellett blushed a deep copper color through her many coats of tan—“convinced me that I was the heroine thereof. And, nacherally, I turned over to paw the feachers and characteristics of the hero in said book I happened to be enjoyin’ at the time. Paw never knew it, but sometimes he was a dook, and it was plumb hard work. Just about as hard as ropin’ a mountain-lion an’ sayin’, ‘remember, you are a sheep from this time henceforth, and trim your action accordin’.’ I’d say to paw, ‘Let’s walk together in the gloaming, here in this deserted garden’; and paw would say, ‘Name o’ Gawd, woman, have you lost your mind? It’s plumb three hundred and fifty miles to the Tivoli beer-garden in Cheyenne, and it ain’t deserted, either!’

“Then I’d wring my hands in anguish, same as the Lady Mary, an’ paw would declare I was locoed. He seemed a heap more nacheral when I pretended he was ‘Black Ranger, the Pirate King.’ His language came in handy, and his cartridge-belt and pistol all came in Black Ranger’s outfit. Yes, it was a heap easier playing he was a pirate than a dook. All this happened back to Salt Lake, where me an’ paw was married.”

Mrs. Yellett looked towards the mountain-range that separated her from the Mormon country, and her listeners realized that she was verging perilously close to confidences. Mary Carmichael, who dreaded missing any detail of the chronicle that dealt with paw in the rôle of apocryphal duke, hastened to say:

“And you lost your taste for romance, finally?”

“In Salt Lake I was left to myself a whole lot-there was reasons why I didn’t mingle with the Mormon herd. Paw was mighty attentive to me, but them was troublous times for paw. I pastures myself with the fleetin’ figures of romance the endoorin’ time and enjoys myself a heap. When paw wasn’t a dook or a pirate king, unbeknownst to himself, like as not he was Sir Marmaduke Trevelyun, or somebody entitled to the same amount of dog.

“’Bout this time a little stranger was due in our midst, and the woman who came to take care of me was plumb locoed over novels, same as me, only worse. She just hungered for ’em, same as if she had a longin’ for something out of season. She brought a batch of them with her in her trunk, we borrowed her a lot more, some I don’t know how she come by. But they didn’t have no effect; it was like feedin’ an’ Injun—you couldn’t strike bottom. She read out of ’em to me with disastrous results happenin’, an’ that cured me. The brand on this here book that effected my change of heart was The Bride of the Tomb. I forget the name of the girl in that romance, but she was in hard luck from the start. She couldn’t head off the man pursooin’ her, any way she turned. She’d wheel out of his way cl’ar across country, but he’d land thar fust an’ wait for her, a smile on his satanine feachers.

“I got so wrought up along o’ that book, an’ worried as to the outcome, ’most as bad as the girl. Think of it! An’ me with only three baby-shirts an’ a flannel petticoat made at the time! Seemed ’s if I couldn’t hustle my meals fast enough, I just hankered so to know what was goin’ to happen next! I plumb detested the man with the handsome feachers, same as the girl. Me an’ her felt precisely alike about him. And when he shut her up in the family vault I just giv’ up an’ was took then an’ there, an’ me without so much as finishin’ the flannel petticoat! I never could endure the sight of a novel since. Perhaps that’s why Ben is so dumb about his books—just holds a nacheral grudge against ’em along of my havin’ to borrow slips for him.”

“Has the Book of Hiram anything to say against the habit of novel reading, Mrs. Yellett?” inquired Judith, demurely.

She paused for a moment. “It’s mighty inconvenient that I should have mislaid that book, but rounding up my recollections of it, I recall something like this: ‘Romance is the loco-weed of humanity.’”

“So you don’t approve of the Mormon Bible?” ventured Mary.

“I jest nacherally execrates Mormonism, spoken, printed, or in action,” she said, with an emphasis that suggested the subject had a strong personal bearing. “I recall a text from the Book of Hiram touching on Mormon deportment in particklar an’ human nature at large. It says, ‘Where several women and one man are gathered together for the purpose of serving the Lord, the man gets the bulk of the service.”

She broke off suddenly, as if she feared she had said too much. “Judy,” she demanded, “is Mis’ Dax busy with Leander now?”

“Not more than usual,” smiled Judith.

“Jest tell her for me, will you, that I want to hire her husband to do some herdin’; Leander’s handy, ’n’ can work good an’ sharp, if he is an infidel. An’ I like to have him over now an’ then, as you know, Judy. As the Book of Hiram says, ‘It’s neighborly to ease the check-rein of a gentled husband.’ But you tell him I don’t want to hear any of his ever-lastin’ fool argufyin’ ’bout religion. Leander ’d stop in the middle of shearin’ a sheep to argue that Jonah never came out o’ the whale’s belly. I ain’t no use for infidels, ’less they’re muzzled, which Leander mos’ generally is.”

With the feeling that there was an excellent though unspoken understanding between them, the two girls walked together to the top of the path that wandered away from camp towards a bluff overlooking wave after wave of foot-hills, lying blue and still like a petrified sea.

“I’m still dying to know who wrote that letter,” begged Mary.

“It was written by a lady who is very anxious to return to Washington, and she took that means of getting one more vote. Her husband is going to run for the Senate next term. We hear a good deal of that side of politics, you know.”

“It was certainly convincing,” remarked the victim of the letter. “My aunts detected many virtues in the handwriting.”

“But now that you are really here, isn’t it splendid? Mountains are such good neighbors. They give you their great company and yet leave you your own little reservations.”

“But I fear I can never feel at home out-of-doors,” Mary announced, with such a rueful expression that they both smiled.

“Perhaps, then, it depends on the frame of mind. I’ve had longer than you to cultivate it.”

Mary looked towards the mountains, serene in their strength. “Awesome as they are,” she laughed, “they don’t frighten me nearly as much as Ben and Ned. They are really very difficile, my pupils, and I feel so ridiculous sitting up back of that tub, teaching them letters and the spelling of foolish words, when they know things I’ve never dreamed of. The other day, out of a few scratches in the dust that I should never have given a second glance, one of them made out that some one’s horses had broken the corral and one was trailing a rope. Whereupon my pupil got on a horse, went in search of the strays, and returned them to men going to a round-up. After that, the spelling of cat didn’t seem quite so much of an achievement as it had before.”

“But they need the spelling of cat so much more than you need to understand trail-marks. Why don’t you try a little strategy with them? Perhaps a bribe, even? It seems to me I remember something in history about the part played in colonization by the bright-colored bead.”

Sundry wood-cuts from a long-forgotten primer history of the United States came back to Mary. In that tear-stained, dog-eared volume, all explorers, from Columbus down to Lewis and Clarke, were unfailingly depicted in the attitude of salesmen displaying squares of cloth to savages apparently in urgent need of them.

“How stupid of me not to remember Father Marquette concluding negotiations with a necklace!”

“Frankly plagiarize the terms of your treaty from Père Marquette, and there you are!”

“You are so splendid!” said Mary, impulsively, remembering Judith’s own sorrows and the smiling fortitude with which she kept them hidden. “You make me feel like a horrid little girl that has been whining.”

Judith looked towards the mountains a long time without speaking.

“When you know them well, they whisper great things that little folk can’t take away.”

She turned back towards camp, walking lightly, with head thrown back. Mary watched her. Yes, the mountains might have admitted her to their company.