CHAPTER VII
THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE
"Nature counts no day as wasted."—The Murmuring Pine.
Amos and Kent caught Charlie by either arm as his hands clutched for Levine's throat. Marshall did not stir out of his chair. During the remainder of the episode his face wore a complacent expression that, though Lydia did not consciously observe it at the time, returned to her in after years with peculiar significance.
"Here! Here! This won't do, my young Indian!" cried Amos.
"Let me get at him!" panted Charlie.
Lydia moved away from Lizzie and Margery. The three had automatically jumped to grab Adam's collar for Adam always assisted in a fight, human or otherwise. She ran over to the Indian.
"Charlie," she pleaded, looking up into his face, "you mustn't hurt Mr. Levine. He's my best friend. And it is not polite to come to call at my house and make a row, this way."
"That's right," commented Marshall. "Do your fighting outdoors."
John had not stirred from his chair. He looked up at the Indian and said slowly and insolently, "Get out of here! You know what I can do to you, don't you? Well, get out before I do it!"
Charlie returned John's look of contempt with one of concentrated hatred. Then he turned to Kent.
"Come on, Kent," he growled and followed by his friend, he marched out of the kitchen door.
"Whew!" said Amos, "talk about civilizing Indians!"
Lydia was trembling violently. "What made him act so—— Did you hurt his sister, Mr. Levine?"
"Didn't even know he had a sister," returned John, coolly relighting his cigar.
Marshall rose and stretched his fat body. "Well, you serve up too much excitement for me, Amos. I'll be getting along. Come, Margery."
"Wait and we'll all have some coffee," said Lizzie. "Land, I'm all shook up."
"Pshaw! 'twan't anything. Kent should have had more sense than to bring him in here," said Levine.
"Why, he's usually perfectly lovely," protested Lydia. "Goes to parties with the girls and everything."
"I wouldn't go to a party with a dirty Indian," said Margery, her nose up in the air.
"What do you know about parties, chicken?" asked Marshall, buttoning her coat for her.
"Mama says I can go next year when I enter High School," replied
Margery.
"First boy, white or Indian, that comes to call on you before you're eighteen, I'll turn the hose on," said Dave, winking at the men.
Amos and John laughed and Dave made his exit in high good humor.
When the door had closed Amos said, "Any real trouble with the boy,
John?"
"Shucks, no!" returned Levine. "Forget it!"
And forget it they did while the November dusk drew to a close and the red eyes of the stove blinked a warmer and warmer glow. About eight o'clock, after a light supper, Levine started back for town. He had not been gone five minutes when a shot cracked through the breathless night air.
Amos started for the door but Lizzie grasped his arm. "You stay right here, Amos, and take care of the house."
"What do you s'pose it was?" whispered Lydia. "I wish Mr. Levine was here. He's sheriff."
"That's what I'm afraid of—that something's happened, to him—between his being sheriff and his other interests. I'll get my lantern."
"Wait! I'll have to fill it for you," said Lydia.
So it was that while Amos fumed and Lydia sought vainly for a new wick, footsteps sounded on the porch, the door opened and Billy Norton and his father supported John Levine into the living-room. Levine's overcoat showed a patch of red on the right breast.
"For God's sake! Here, put him on the couch," gasped Amos.
"Billy, take Levine's bicycle and get the doctor here," said Pa Norton.
"Hot water and clean cloth, Lydia," said Amos. "Let's get his clothes off, Norton."
"Don't touch me except to cut open my clothes and pack the wound with ice in a pad of rags," said John weakly. Then he closed his eyes and did not speak again till the doctor came.
Lydia trembling violently could scarcely carry the crushed ice from Lizzie to her father. No one spoke until the gentle oozing of the blood yielded to the freezing process. Then Amos said in a low voice to Pa Norton,
"What happened?"
"Can't say. Billy and I were coming home from town when we heard the shot ahead of us. It took us a minute or two to come up to Levine. He was standing dazed like, said the shot had come from the lake shore way and that's all he knew about it."
The beat of horses' hoofs on the frozen ground broke the silence that followed. In a moment Dr. Fulton ran into the room. Lydia seized Florence Dombey and hurried to the kitchen, nor did she leave her station in the furthest corner until the door closed softly after the doctor. Amos came out into the kitchen and got a drink at the water pail.
"Doc got the bullet," said Amos. "Grazed the top of the lungs and came to the surface near the backbone. Lord, that was a narrow escape!"
"Will he—will he die?" whispered Lydia.
"Of course not," answered Amos, with a quick glance at the blanched little face. "He's got to have good nursing and he can't be moved. Lizzie's as good a nurse as any one could want. Doctor'll be back at midnight and stay the rest of the night."
"Who did it, Daddy?"
Amos shook his head. "It might have been Charlie Jackson or it might have been a dozen others. A sheriff's liable to have plenty of enemies. Billy started a bunch hunting."
Lydia shivered.
"Go to bed, child," said Amos. "We're going to be busy in this house for a while."
"I want to see him first, please, Daddy."
"Just a peek then, don't make a noise."
Already the living room had a sick room aspect. The light was lowered and the table was littered with bandages and bottles. Lydia crept up to the couch and stood looking down at the gaunt, quiet figure.
John opened his eyes and smiled faintly. "Making you lots of trouble, young Lydia."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Lydia. "Just get well, we don't mind the trouble."
"I've got to get well, so's you and I can travel," whispered Levine.
"Good night, dear."
Lydia swallowed a sob. "Good night," she said.
At first, Amos planned to have Lydia stay out of school to help, but Levine grew so feverishly anxious when he heard of this that the idea was quickly given up and Ma Norton and a neighbor farther up the road arranged to spend the days turn about, helping Lizzie.
As soon as the shooting was known, there was a deluge of offers of help. All the organizations to which Levine belonged as well as his numerous acquaintances were prodigal in their offers of every kind of assistance.
But John fretfully refused. He would have no nurse but Lizzie, share no roof but Amos'. "You're the only folks I got," he told Amos again and again.
The shooting was a seven days' wonder, but no clue was found as to the identity of the would-be assassin. Charlie Jackson had spent the evening with Kent. As the monotony of Levine's convalescence came on, gossip and conjecture lost interest in him. John himself would not speak of the shooting.
It was after Christmas before John was able to sit up in Amos' arm chair and once more take a serious interest in the world about him. Lydia, coming home from school, would find Adam howling with joy at the gate and John, pale and weak but fully dressed, watching for her from his arm chair by the window. The two had many long talks, in the early winter dusk before Lydia started her preparations for supper. One of these particularly, the child never forgot.
"Everybody acted queer about Charlie Jackson, at first," said Lydia, "but now you're getting well, they're all just as crazy about him as ever."
"He'll kill some one in a football scrimmage yet," was John's comment.
"No, the boys say he never loses his temper. The rest of them do. I wish girls played football. I bet I'd make a good quarterback."
John laughed weakly but delightedly. "You must weigh fully a hundred pounds! Why, honey, they'd trample a hundred pounds to death!"
"They would not!" Lydia's voice was indignant. "And just feel my muscles. I get 'em from swimming."
John ran his hand over the proffered shoulders and arm. "My goodness," he said in astonishment. "Those muscles are like tiny steel springs. Well, what else would you like to be besides quarterback, Lydia?"
"When I was a little girl I was crazy to be an African explorer. And
I'd still like to be, only I know that's not sensible. Adam, for
Pete's sake get off my feet."
Adam gave a slobbery sigh and withdrew a fraction of an inch. Levine watched Lydia in the soft glow of the lamp light. Her hair was still the dusty yellow of babyhood but it was long enough now to hang in soft curls in her neck after she had tied it back with a ribbon. She was still wearing the sailor suits, and her face was still thin and childish for all she was a sophomore.
"I don't suppose you could explore," said Levine, meditatively.
"Oh, I could, if I had the money to outfit with, but I'll tell you what I really would like best of all." Lydia hitched her chair closer to Levine and glanced toward the kitchen where Lizzie was knitting and warming her feet in the oven. "I'd like to own an orphan asylum. And I'd get the money to run it with from a gold mine. I would find a mine in New Mexico. I know I could if I could just get out there."
"Seems to me all your plans need money," suggested John.
"Yes, that's the trouble with them," admitted Lydia, with a sigh. "And
I'll always be poor—I'm that kind."
"What are you really going to do with yourself, Lydia, pipe dreams aside?"
"Well, first I'm going to get an education, clear up through the University. 'Get an education if you have to scrub the streets to do it,' was what Mother always said. 'You can be a lady and be poor,' she said, 'but you can't be a lady and use poor English.' And then I'm going to be as good a housekeeper as Mrs. Marshall and I'm going to dress as well as Olga Reinhardt, and have as pretty hands as Miss Towne. And I'm never going to move out of the home I make. Maybe I'll get married. I suppose I'll have to 'cause I want at least six children, and some one's got to support them. And I'll want to travel a good deal."
"Travel takes money," John reminded her.
"Not always. There was The Man Without a Country, but I wouldn't want to have what he had. Seems to me it was a little thing he said after all. Mr. Levine, why did he feel so terrible about the poem?"
"What poem?" asked Levine.
Lydia cleared her throat.
"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my native land?'
—and you know the rest."
John Levine looked at Lydia strangely. There was a moment's pause, then she said, "But I don't understand just what it all means."
"Lots of us don't," commented John, briefly. "But if I had a son I'd beat understanding of it into him with a hickory club."
Lydia's jaw dropped. "But—but wouldn't you beat it into your daughter?"
"What's the use of trying to teach patriotism to anything female?" There was a contemptuous note in Levine's voice that touched Lydia's temper.
"Well, there's plenty of use, I'd have you know!" she cried. "Why, I was more interested in Civil Government last year than any of the boys except Charlie Jackson."
Levine laughed, then said soberly, "All right, Lydia, I'd be glad to see what you can do for your country. When you get that orphan asylum, put over the door, 'Ducit Amor Patriae.'"
Lydia looked at him clearly. "You just wait and see."
She went soberly toward the kitchen for her apron, and Levine looked after her with an expression at once wistful and gentle. Lydia looked up "Ducit Amor Patriae" in a phrase book the next day. She liked the sound of it.
By the middle of January, Levine was sufficiently recovered to leave. The Saturday before he left occurred another conversation between him and Lydia that cemented still further the quaint friendship of the two.
It snowed heavily all day. Lydia had put in the morning as usual cleaning the house. This was a very methodical and thorough process now, and when it was finished the cottage shone with cleanliness. In the afternoon, she dug a path to the gate, played a game of tag in the snow with Adam, then, rosy and tired, established herself in Amos' arm chair with a book. Lizzie was taking a long nap. The dear old soul had been exhausted by the nursing. Levine lay on the couch and finally asked Lydia to read aloud to him. She was deep in "The Old Curiosity Shop" and was glad to share it with her friend.
During the remainder of the afternoon John watched the snowflakes or
Lydia's sensitive little red face and listened to the immortal story.
Suddenly he was astonished to hear Lydia's voice tremble. She was reading of little Nell's last sickness. "She was dead. Dear, patient, noble Nell was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God. Not one who had lived and suffered death."
Lydia suddenly broke off, bowed her yellow head on the book and broke into deep, long drawn sobs that were more like a woman's than a child's.
John rose as quickly as he could. "My dearest!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter?" He pulled her from the arm chair, seated himself, then drew her to his knees.
"I can't bear it!" sobbed Lydia. "I can't. Seems sometimes if I couldn't have little Patience again I'd die! That's the way she looked in her coffin, you remember? 'F-fresh from the hand of God—not one who h-had lived and s-suffered death.' O my little, little sister!"
John took "The Old Curiosity Shop" from the trembling fingers and flung it upon the couch. Then he gathered Lydia in his arms and hushed her against his heart.
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Why, I didn't realize you still felt so! Think how happy Patience must be up there with God and her mother! You wouldn't wish her back!"
"If I believed that I could stand it—but there isn't any God!"
Levine gasped. "Lydia! Hush now! Stop crying and tell me about it."
He rocked slowly back and forth, patting her back and crooning to her until the sobs stopped.
"There!" he said. "And what makes you think there's no God, dear?"
"If there was a God, He'd answer prayers. Or He'd give some sign." Lydia lifted a tear-stained face from John's shoulder. "He's never paid any attention to me," she said tensely. "I've tried every way to make Him hear. Sometimes in the dusk, I've taken Adam and we've gone deep into the woods and I've sat and thought about Him till—till there was nothing else in the world but my thought of Him. And I never got a sign. And I've floated on my back in the lake looking up into the sky trying to make myself believe He was there—and I couldn't. All I knew was that Mother and Patience were dead and in coffins in the ground."
Levine's sallow face was set with pain. "Why, child, this isn't right.
You're too young for such thoughts! Lydia, do you read the Bible?"
She nodded. "I've tried that too—but Jesus might have believed everything He said was true, yet there mightn't have been a word of truth in it. Do you believe in God?"
John's hold on the thin hands tightened. He stared long and thoughtfully at the snowflakes sifting endlessly past the window.
"Lydia," he said, at last. "I'll admit that my faith in the hereafter and in an All-seeing God has been considerably shaken as I've grown older. But I'll admit too, that I've refused to give the matter much thought. I tell you what I'll do. Let's you and I start on our first travel trip, right now! Let's start looking for God, together. He's there all right, my child. But you and I don't seem to be able to use the ordinary paths to get to Him. So we'll hack out our own trail, eh? And you'll tell me what your progress is—and where you get lost—and I'll tell you. It may take us years, but we'll get there, by heck! Eh, young Lydia?"
Lydia looked into the deep black eyes long and earnestly. And as she looked there stole into her heart a sense of companionship, of protection, of complete understanding, that spread like a warm glow over her tense nerves. It was a sense that every child should grow up with, yet that Lydia had not known since her mother's death.
"Oh!" she cried, "I feel happier already. Of course we'll find Him.
I'll begin my hunt to-morrow."
John smoothed her tumbled hair gently. "We're great friends, aren't we, Lydia! I've an idea you'll always believe in me no matter what folks say, eh?"
"You bet!" replied Lydia solemnly.
John Levine went back to his duties as sheriff and Lydia and Amos and Lizzie missed him for a long time. But gradually life fell back into the old routine and spring, then summer, were on them almost before they realized winter was gone.
Lydia did well at school, though she still was an isolated little figure among her schoolmates. The cooking teacher added sewing to the course, after Christmas, and Lydia took up "over and over stitch" at the point where her gentle mother had left off five years before. She progressed so famously that by the time school closed she had learned how to use a shirtwaist pattern and how to fit a simple skirt. With her plans for a summer of dress-making she looked with considerable equanimity on the pretty spring wardrobes of her schoolmates.
They saw less than ever of Levine when summer came, for he was beginning his campaign for Congressman. He came out occasionally on Sunday and then he and Lydia would manage a little stroll in the woods or along the lake shore when they would talk over their progress in the Spiritual Traveling they had undertaken in January. Lydia had decided to give the churches a chance and was deliberately attending one Sunday School after another, studying each one with a child's simple sincerity.
One source of relief to Lydia during the summer was that Mrs. Marshall and Margery spent two months in the East. Lydia had faithfully kept in touch with Margery ever since her promise had been given to Dave Marshall. But she did not like the banker's daughter—nor her mother. So again as far as playmates were concerned Lydia spent a solitary summer.
Yet she was not lonely. Never before had the lake seemed so beautiful to her. Sitting on the little pier with Adam while her father worked in his garden, she watched the sunset across the water, night after night. There was nothing that seemed to bring her nearer to a sense of God than this. Night after night the miracle, always the same, always different. The sun slipped down behind the distant hills, the clouds turned purple in the Western hill tops, fading toward the zenith to an orange that turned to azure as she watched. The lake beneath painted the picture again, with an added shimmer, a more mysterious glow. Little fish flashed like flecks of gold from the water, dropping back in a shower of amethyst. Belated dragon flies darted home. And the young girl watching, listening, waiting, felt her spirit expand to a demand greater than she could answer.
Amos was keenly interested in Levine's campaign. His attitude toward politics was curiously detached, when one considered that he was saturated with information—both as to state and national politics. He was vicious in his criticism of the Democrats, ardent in his support of the Republicans, yet it never seemed to occur to him that it was his political duty to do anything more than talk. He seemed to feel that his ancestors in helping to launch the government had forever relieved him from any duty more onerous than that of casting a vote.
He did, however, take Lydia one September evening just before school opened to hear John make a speech in the Square. Lydia up to this time had given little heed to the campaign, but she was delighted with the unwonted adventure of being away from home in the evening.
It was a soft, moonlit night. The old Square, filled with giant elms, was dotted with arc lights that threw an undulating light on the gray mass of the Capitol building. When Amos and Lydia arrived the Square was full of a laughing, chattering crowd. Well dressed men and women from the University and the lake shore, workingmen, smoking black pipes, pushing baby carriages, while their wives in Sunday best hung on their arms. Young boys and girls of Lydia's age chewed gum and giggled. Older boys and girls kept to the shadows of the elms and whispered. On the wooden platform extended from the granite steps of the Capitol, a band dispensed dance music and patriotic airs, breaking into "America" as Levine made his way to the front of the platform.
Almost instantly the crowd became quiet. A curious sort of tenseness became apparent as Levine began to speak.
Lydia stared up at him. He looked very elegant to her in his frock coat and gray trousers. She was filled with pride at the thought of how close and dear he was to her. She wished that the folk about her realized that she and her shabby father were intimate with the hero of the evening.
The first part of the address interested Lydia very little. It concerned the possibility of a new Post Office for Lake City and made numerous excursions into the matter of free trade. It did not seem to Lydia that in spite of their attitude of tenseness, the people around her were much more interested than she.
Then of a sudden Levine launched his bolt.
"But after all," he said, "my friends, what is free trade or a new Post Office to you or me? Actually nothing, as far as our selfish and personal interests go. And who is not selfish, who is not personal in his attitude toward his community and his country? I frankly admit that I am. I suspect that you are.
"Ladies and gentlemen, twenty miles north of this old and highly civilized city, lies a tract fifty miles square of primitive forest, inhabited by savages. That tract of land is as beautiful as a dream of heaven. Virgin pines tower to the heavens. Little lakes lie hid like jewels on its bosoms. Its soil is black. Fur bearing animals frequent it now as they did a century ago.
"Friends, in this city of white men there is want and suffering for the necessities of life. Twenty miles to the north lies plenty for every needy inhabitant of the town, lies a bit of loam and heaven-kissing pines for each and all.
"But, you say, they belong to the Indians! Friends, they belong to a filthy, degenerate, lazy race of savages, who refuse to till the fields or cut the pines, who spend on whiskey the money allowed them by a benevolent government and live for the rest, like beasts of the field.
"Why, I ask you, should Indians be pampered and protected, while whites live only in the bitter air of competition?
"I am not mincing words to-night. I do not talk of taking the lands from the Indians by crooked methods. You all know the law. An Indian may not sell the lands allotted to him. I want you to send me to Congress to change that law. I want the Indian to be able to sell his acreage."
Levine stopped and bowed. Pandemonium broke loose in the Square. Clapping, hisses, cheers and cat-calls. Lydia clung to her father's arm while he began to struggle through the crowd.
"Well," he said, as they reached the outer edge of the Square and headed for the trolley, "the battle is on."
"But what will the Indians do, Daddy, if they sell their land?" asked
Lydia.
"Do! Why just what John intimated. Get out and hustle for a living like the rest of us do. Why not?"
Why not indeed! "What did some of the people hiss for?" asked Lydia.
"Oh, there's a cheap bunch of sentimentalists in the town,—all of 'em, you'll notice, with good incomes,—who claim the Indians are like children, so we should take care of 'em like children. Then there's another bunch who make a fat living looting the Indians. They don't want the reservation broken up. I'm going to sit on the back seat of the car and smoke."
Lydia clambered into the seat beside her father. "Well—but—well, I suppose if Mr. Levine feels that way and you too, it's right. But they are kind of like children. Charlie Jackson's awful smart, but he's like a child too."
"I don't care what they're like," said Amos. "We've babied 'em long enough. Let 'em get out and hustle."
"Do you think Mr. Levine'll get elected?"
Amos shrugged his shoulders. "Never can tell. This is a Democratic town, but Levine is standing for something both Democrats and Republicans want. It'll be a pretty fight. May split the Democratic party."
This was the beginning of Lydia's reading of the newspapers. To her father's secret amusement, she found the main details of Levine's battle as interesting as a novel. Every evening when he got home to supper he found her poring over the two local papers and primed with questions for him. Up to this moment she had lived in a quiet world bounded by her school, the home, the bit of lake shore and wood with which she was intimate, and peopled by her father and her few friends.
With John Levine's speech, her horizon suddenly expanded to take in the city and the vague picture of the reservation to the north. She realized that the eyes of the whole community were focused on her dearest friend. Up on the quiet, shaded college campus—the newspapers told her—they spoke of him contemptuously. He was a cheap politician, full of unsound economic principles, with a history of dishonest land deals behind him. It would be a shame to the community to be represented by such a man. They said that his Democratic opponent, a lawyer who had been in Congress some five terms, was at least a gentleman whose career had been a clean and open book.
When these slurs reached Levine, he answered in a vitriolic speech in which he named the names of several members of the faculty who had profited through the Indian agent in quiet little sales of worthless goods to Indians.
The saloon element, Lydia learned, was against Levine. It wanted the reservation to stand. That the saloon element should be in harmony with them was galling to the college crowd, though the fact that their motives for agreement were utterly different was some solace.
The "fast crowd" were for John. Clubmen, politicians, real estate men were high in his praise. The farmers all were going to vote for him.
Lake City was always interested in the national election but this year, where the presidential candidates were mentioned once, Levine and his opponent were mentioned a hundred times. Ministers preached sermons on the campaign. The Ladies' Aid Society of the Methodist Church, the Needlework Guild of the Episcopalian, the Woman's Auxiliary of the Unitarian, hereditary enemies, combined forces to work for Levine, and the freeing of the poor Indian from bondage.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NOTE
"Each year I strew the ground with cones, yet no young pines grow up.
This has been true only since the Indians went."—The Murmuring Pine.
Margery Marshall had entered High School this fall. She had returned from New York with a trousseau that a bride might have envied. She was growing tall, and her beauty already was remarkable. Her little head carried its great black braid proudly. The pallor of her skin was perfectly healthy—and even the Senior lads were seen to observe her with interest and appreciation.
The results of Lydia's summer dressmaking had not been bad. She had made herself several creditable shirtwaists and a neat little blue serge skirt. Her shoes were still shabby. Poor Lydia seemed somehow never to have decent shoes. But her hands and the back of her neck were clean; and her pile of Junior school books already had been paid for—by picking small fruit for Ma Norton during the summer and helping her to can it. She came back to school with zeal and less than her usual sense of shabbiness.
It was a day toward the first of October at the noon hour that Lydia met Kent and Charlie Jackson. She had finished her lunch, which she ate in the cloakroom, and bareheaded and coatless was walking up and down the sidewalk before the schoolhouse.
"Hello, Lyd! How's everything?" asked Kent. "I haven't seen you to talk to since last spring."
"Did you have a fine summer?" said Lydia.
"Aw, only part of it. Dad made me work till the middle of August, then
Charlie and I camped up on the reservation."
"Shame he had to work, isn't it?" grinned Charlie. "Poor little Kent!"
The three laughed, for Kent now towered above Lydia a half head and was as brawny as Charlie.
"There comes Margery," said Lydia. "She hardly speaks to me now, she's been to New York."
"She is a peach," exclaimed Charlie, eying Margery in her natty little blue suit appraisingly.
"Some swell dame, huh?" commented Kent, his hands in his trousers' pockets, cap on the back of his head. "Hello, Marg! Whither and why?"
"Oh, how de do, Kent!" Margery approached languidly, including Lydia and Charlie in her nod.
"Got any paper dolls in your pocket, Miss Marshall?" inquired Charlie.
Margery tossed her head. "Oh, I gave up that sort of thing long ago!"
"Land sakes!" The young Indian chuckled.
"How do you like High School, Margery?" asked Lydia.
"Oh, it's well enough for a year or so! Of course Mama, I mean—Mother's going to send me to New York to finish."
"'Mother!' suffering cats!" moaned Kent. "Marg, you're getting so refined, I almost regret having pulled you out of the lake that time."
"You! Why Kent Marshall, I pulled her out myself!" exclaimed Lydia.
"And I saved both of you—and got licked for it," said Kent.
"I hope you all had a pleasant summer," observed Margery, twisting up the curls in front of her small ears. "Mother and I were in New York."
Kent, Lydia and Charlie exchanged glances.
"I had a pretty good summer," said Lydia. "I sewed and cooked and scrubbed and swam and once Adam, Dad, Mr. Levine and I walked clear round the lake, eighteen miles. Adam nearly died, he's so fat and bow-legged. He scolded all the way."
"I don't see how your father can let that Mr. Levine come to your house!" exclaimed Margery with sudden energy. "My father says he's a dangerous man."
"He's a crook!" said Charlie, stolidly and finally.
Lydia stamped her foot. "He's not and he's my friend!" she cried.
"You'd better not admit it!" Margery's voice was scornful. "Daddy says he's going to speak to your father about him."
"Your father'd better not go up against Levine too hard," said Kent, with a superior masculine air. "Just tell him I said so."
"You don't stick up for Levine, do you, Kent?" asked Charlie, indignantly.
"Why, no, but Dave Marshall's got no business to put his nose in the air over John Levine. I don't care if he is Margery's father. Everybody in town knows that he's as cruel as a wolf about mortgages and some of his money deals won't bear daylight."
"Don't you dare to say such things about my father," shrieked Margery.
"He was awful good to Dad and me about a money matter," protested Lydia.
"Aw, all of us men are good to you, Lyd," said Kent impatiently. "You're that kind. Being good to you don't make a man a saint. Look at Levine. He's got a lot of followers, but I'll bet you're the only person he's fond of."
"He's a crook," repeated Charlie, slowly. "If what he's trying to do goes through, my tribe'll be wanderers on the face of the earth. If I thought it would do any good, I'd kill him. But some other brute of a white would take his place. It's hopeless."
The three young whites looked at the Indian wonderingly. Their little spatting was as nothing, they realized, to the mature and tragic bitterness that Charlie expressed. A vague sense of a catastrophe, epic in character, that the Indian evidently saw clearly, but was beyond their comprehension, silenced them. The awkward pause was broken by the school bell.
Lydia had plenty to think of on her long walk home. Charlie's voice and words haunted her. What did it all mean? Why was he so resentful and so hopeless? She made up her mind that when she had the opportunity to ask him, she would. She sighed a little, as she thought of the comments of her mates on John Levine. Little by little she was realizing that she was the only person in the world that saw the gentle, tender side of the Republican candidate for Congress. The realization thrilled her, while it worried her. She had an idea that she ought to make him show the world the heart he showed to her. As she turned in at the gate and received Adam's greetings, she resolved to talk this matter over with Levine.
The opportunity to talk with Charlie came about simply enough. At recess one day a week or so later he asked her if she was going to the first Senior Hop of the year. Lydia gave him a clear look.
"Why do you ask me that? Just to embarrass me?" she said.
Charlie looked startled. "Lord knows I didn't mean anything," he exclaimed. "What're you so touchy about?"
Lydia's cheeks burned redder than usual. "I went to a party at Miss Towne's when I was a Freshman and I promised myself I'd never go to another."
"Why not!" Charlie's astonishment was genuine.
"Clothes," replied Lydia, briefly.
The Indian boy leaned against a desk and looked Lydia over through half-closed eyes. "You're an awful pretty girl, Lydia. Honest you are, and you've got more brain in a minute than any other girl in school'll have all her life."
Lydia blushed furiously. Then moved by Charlie's simplicity and obviously sincere liking, she came closer to him and said, "Then, Charlie, why hasn't any boy ever asked me to a party? Is it just clothes?"
Looking up at him with girlish wistfulness in the blue depths of her eyes, with the something tragic in the lines of her face that little Patience's death had written there irradicably, with poverty speaking from every fold of the blouse and skirt, yet with all the indescribable charm of girlish beauty at fifteen, Lydia was more appealing than Charlie could stand.
"Lydia, I'll take you to a party a week, if you'll go!" he cried.
"No! No! I couldn't go," she protested. "Answer my question—is it clothes?"
"No, only half clothes," answered Charlie, meeting her honestly. "The other half is you know too much. You know the fellows like a girl that giggles a lot and don't know as much as he does and that's a peachy dancer and that'll let him hold her hand and kiss her. And that's the honest to God truth, Lydia."
"Oh," she said. "Oh—" Then, "Well, I could giggle, all right. I can't dance very well because I've just picked up the steps from watching the girls teach each other in the cloakroom. Oh, well, I don't care! I've got Adam and I've got Mr. Levine."
"He's a nice one to have," sneered Charlie.
"Why do you hate him so, Charlie?" asked Lydia.
"Lots of reasons. And I'll hate him more if he gets his bill through
Congress."
"I don't see why you feel so," said Lydia. "You get along all right without the reservation, why shouldn't the other Indians. I don't understand."
"No, you don't understand," replied Charlie, "you're like most of the other whites round here. You see a chance to get land and you'd crucify each other if you needed to, to get it. What chance do Indians stand? But I tell you this," his voice sank to a hoarse whisper and his eyes looked far beyond her, "if there is a God of the Indians as well as the whites, you'll pay some day! You'll pay as we are paying."
Lydia shivered. "Don't talk so, Charlie. I wish I knew all about it, the truth about it. If I was a man, you bet before I voted, I'd find out. I'd go up there on that reservation and I'd see for myself whether it would be better for the Indians to get off. That poor old squaw I gave my lunch to, I wonder what would become of her—"
"Look here, Lydia," exclaimed Charlie, "why don't you come up on the reservation for a camping trip, next summer, for a week or so?"
"Costs too much," said Lydia.
"Wouldn't either. I can get tents and it wouldn't cost you anything but your share of the food. Kent'll go and maybe one of the teachers would chaperone."
Lydia's eyes kindled. "Gee, Charlie, perhaps it could be fixed! I got nine months to earn the money in. It's something to look forward to."
Charlie nodded and moved away. "You'll learn things up there you never dreamed of," he said.
The conversation with John Levine did not take place until the Sunday before the election. The fight in the Congressional district had increased in bitterness as it went on. Nothing but greed could have precipitated so malevolent a war. The town was utterly disrupted. Neighbors of years' standing quarreled on sight. Students in the University refused to enter the classrooms of teachers who disagreed with them on the Levine fight. Family feuds developed. Ancient family skeletons regarding pine grafts and Indian looting saw the light of day.
On the Saturday a week before election, Lydia went to pay her duty call on Margery. Elviry admitted her. It was the first time Lydia had seen her since the New York trip.
"Margery'll be right down," said Elviry. "She's just finished her nap."
"Her what?" inquired Lydia, politely.
"Her nap. A New York beauty doctor told me to have her take one every day. Of course, going to school, she can't do it only Saturdays and Sundays. She went to the Hop last night. She looked lovely in a cream chiffon. One of the college professors asked who was that little beauty. Come in, Margery."
Margery strolled into the room in a bright red kimona. "How de do,
Lydia," she said.
"Hello, Margery. Want to play paper dolls?"
"Paper dolls!" shrieked Elviry. "Why, Margery, you are fifteen!"
"I don't care," replied Lydia obstinately. "I still play 'em once in a while."
"I haven't touched one since last spring," said Margery. "Want to see my New York clothes?"
"No, thank you," answered Lydia. "I'd just as soon not. I've got to get home right away."
"What's in that big bundle?" asked Elviry, pointing to the huge paper parcel in Lydia's lap.
"Nothing," she said shortly, looking at the rope portières in the doorway.
"I got new ones in the East," said Elviry, following her glance. "Shells strung together. But I put 'em up only when we have parties. We don't use anything but doilies on the dining table now, no tablecloths. It's the latest thing in New York. Who made your shirtwaist, Lydia?"
"I did," answered Lydia, not without pride.
"I thought so," commented Elviry. "How much was the goods a yard—six cents? I thought so. Hum—Margery's every day shirtwaists were none of them less than thirty-nine cents a yard, in New York. But of course that's beyond you. I don't suppose your father's had a raise, yet. He ain't that kind. Does he pay Levine any rent for that cottage?"
"Of course, every month!" exclaimed Lydia, indignantly.
"Oh! I just asked! Your father's been talking strong for him at the plow factory, they say, and we just wondered. He's old enough to be your father, but you're getting to be a young lady now, Lydia, and it's very bad for your reputation to be seen with him. You haven't any mother and I must speak."
"I don't see how John Levine's reputation about Indians or pine lands can hurt me any," protested Lydia, angrily, "and I just think you're the impolitest person I know."
Elviry snorted and started to speak but Margery interrupted.
"You are impolite, Mama! It's none of our business about Lydia—if she wants to be common."
Lydia rose, holding the paper parcel carefully in her arms. "I am common, just common folks! I always was and I always will be and I'm glad of it—and I'm going home."
The front door slammed as she spoke and Dave Marshall came in.
"Hello! Well, Lydia, this is a sight for sore eyes. Thought you'd forgotten us. What's in your bundle?"
Lydia spoke furiously, tearing the paper off the bundle as she did so.
"Well, since you're all so curious, I'll show you!" And Florence Dombey, with the hectic gaze unchanged, emerged. "There!" said Lydia. "I never shall be too old for Florence Dombey and I thought Margery wouldn't be either—but I was wrong. I wrapped Florence Dombey up because I do look too big for dolls and I don't want folks to laugh at her."
"Of course you're not too big for dolls," said Dave. "You and Margery go on and have your play."
"Daddy!" cried Margery. "Why, I wouldn't touch a doll now."
"There, you see!" said Lydia, laying Florence Dombey on a chair while she pulled on her coat—made this year from one that Lizzie had grown too stout to wear—"It's no use for me to try to be friends any more with Margery. She's rich and I'm common and poor. She has parties and beaux and clothes and I don't. I'll be friends with you but I can't be friends with her."
Dave looked from his two women folks to Lydia. "What've you two been saying now?" he asked gruffly.
Elviry tossed her head. "Nothing at all. I just showed a decent interest in Lydia, as I would in any motherless girl and she got mad."
"Yes, I know your decent interest," grunted Dave. "You make me sick,
Elviry. Why I was ever such a fool as to let you spend a summer in New
York, I don't know."
"Now, Dave," said Elviry in a conciliating tone, "you said that Lydia and Amos ought to be warned about Levine."
"Yes, I did," exclaimed Dave, with a sudden change of voice. "You tell your father to come round and see me this evening, Lydia. I don't like his attitude on the reservation question. Tell him if I can't change his views any other way, I may have to bring pressure with that note."
Lydia blanched. She looked at Marshall with parted lips. She never had heard before the peculiar, metallic quality in his voice that she heard now. She buttoned her coat with trembling fingers.
"Yes, sir, I'll tell him," she said. "I guess it's no use to try to be friends with you either. We'll pay that note up, somehow. Even it can't be allowed to keep us from believing what we believe." Her voice strengthened suddenly. "What's the use of being an American if you can't believe what you want to? We'll pay that note! If I have to quit school and go out as a hired girl, we will."
Dave Marshall looked from Lydia to Margery and back again. Margery was patting her curls. Lydia, holding the doll, returned his look indignantly.
"I'm not going to tell my father to come to see you. I'll answer right now. We'll think and say what we please and you can do whatever you want to about that nasty old note."
Dave suddenly laughed. "There, Elviry, that's what I mean about
Lydia's being the real thing. You can't help my being your friend,
Lydia, no matter what happens. But," grimly, "I'll call in that note
unless your father shuts up."
"Good-by!" exclaimed Lydia abruptly and she marched into the hall, head held high, and closed the outside door firmly behind her.
It had been a long time since she had known the heavy sinking of the heart that she felt now. In spite of their desperate poverty, since her interview in the bank with Marshall four years before, she had not worried about money matters. She had an utter horror of repeating Marshall's message to her father. Money worry made Amos frantic. She plodded along the October road, unheeding the frosty sunshine or the scudding brown leaves that had charmed her on her earlier trip.
In the midst of one of her longest sighs, Billy Norton overtook her.
"Well, Lydia," he said, "isn't it chilly for your lady friend?"
"Hello, Billy," said Lydia, looking up at the young man soberly. Billy was a sophomore in college.
"I'll carry her, if your hands are cold, though I'd hate to be caught at it," he said.
Lydia ignored his offer. "Billy, is there any way a girl like me could earn $600?" she asked him.
"Golly, not that I know of! Why?"
"Oh, I just asked. I wish I was a man."
Billy looked at the scarlet cheeks and the blowing yellow curls. "I don't," he said. "What's worrying you, Lyd?"
"Nothing," she insisted. Then, anxious to change the subject, she asked, "What're you studying to be, Billy?"
"A farmer. Next year I shift into the long agric. course."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia, "I don't see what you want to study to be a farmer for. I should think you'd want to be something classy like a lawyer or—or something."
"Lots of folks think the same way, but I believe a farmer's the most independent man in the world. And that's what I want to be, independent—call no man boss."
"That's me too, Billy," cried Lydia, pausing at her gate. "That's what
I want to be, independent. That's what real Americans are."
"You're a funny little girl," said Billy. "What made you think of that?"
"I often think about it," returned Lydia, running up the path to the door.
Billy stood for a minute looking after her thoughtfully. Then he smiled to himself and went on homeward.
Lydia did not tell her father that night of Marshall's threat. He was in such a tranquil mood that she could not bear to upset him. But the next day she gathered her courage together and told him. Amos was speechless for a moment. Then to her surprise instead of walking the floor and swearing, he gave a long whistle.
"So it's that serious, is it? I wonder just what he's up to! The old crook! Huh! This will be nuts for John though. If he doesn't come out this afternoon, I'll go look him up this evening."
Lydia's jaw dropped. "But, Daddy, you don't seem to realize we'll have to pay $600 the first of January," she urged, her voice still trembling. She had scarcely slept the night before in dread of this moment.
For the first time, Amos looked at her carefully. "Why, my dear child, there's nothing to worry about!" he exclaimed.
"You mean you're going to stop talking for Mr. Levine? Oh, Daddy, don't do that! We can borrow the money somewhere and I'll help pay it back. I'm almost grown up now."
"'Stop talking'!" roared Amos. "I've fallen pretty far below what my ancestors stood for, but I ain't that low yet. Now," his voice softened, "you stop worrying. Levine and I'll take care of this."
Lydia looked at her father doubtfully and suddenly he laughed unsteadily and kissed her. "You get more and more like your mother. I've seen that look on her face a hundred times when I told her I'd fix up a money matter. I don't know what I'd do without you, Lydia, I swan."
This was rare demonstrativeness for Amos. The reaction from anxiety was almost too much for Lydia. She laughed a little wildly, and seizing Adam by his fore paws put him through a two step that was agony for the heavy fellow. Then she put on her coat, and bareheaded started for a walk. Amos stood in the window staring after the bright hair in the October sun until it disappeared into the woods. Then he sighed softly. "Oh, Patience, Patience, I wonder if you can see her now!"
Levine stole away from his various councils and reached the cottage about supper time.
"If I didn't get out here once in a while," he said as he sat down to the waffles and coffee that made the Sunday night treat Lydia had lately developed, "I'd get to believe every one was playing politics."
Lizzie, pouring the coffee, looked Levine over. "A bullet'd have hard work to hit you now," she remarked, "you're so thin. If you'd listen to me, you'd be taking Cod Liver Oil."
Levine smiled at the wrinkled old face opposite. "If I didn't listen to you, I don't know who I would. Aren't you and Lydia all the women folks I got? If you'll fix me up some dope, I'll take a dose every time I come out here."
Lizzie sniffed and loaded his plate with another waffle. Amos was giving no heed to these small amenities. He was eating his waffles absentmindedly and suddenly burst forth,
"Lydia, tell John about Dave Marshall."
Lydia, flushing uncomfortably, did so. Levine did not cease his onslaught on the waffles during the recital. When she had finished, he passed his coffee cup.
"Another cup, young Lydia. Your coffee is something to dream of."
Lydia was too surprised to take the cup. "But—but six hundred dollars. Mr. Levine!" she gasped.
"Good news, eh, Amos?" said Levine. "Getting anxious, isn't he!" Then catching Lydia's look of consternation, "Why, bless your soul, Lydia, what are you upset about? Let him call in the loan. I can pay it."
Amos nodded. "Just what I said."
"But I think that's awful," protested Lydia. "We owe Mr. Levine so much now."
The effect of her words on John was astonishing. He half rose from his chair and said in a tone not to be forgotten, "Lydia, never let me hear you speak again of owing me anything! Between you and me there can never be any sense of obligation. Do you understand me?"
There was a moment's silence at the table, Amos and Lizzie glanced at each other, but Lydia's clear gaze was on the deep eyes of Levine. What she saw there she was too young to understand, but she answered gravely,
"All right, Mr. Levine."
John sank back in his chair and passed his plate for a waffle.
"I'll make my interest and payments to you then, thank the Lord!" said
Amos.
"We'll make them on time just as usual," remarked Lydia, in a voice that had both reproof and warning in it. "Ain't debts perfectly awful," she sighed.
"So Marshall's worried," repeated John, complacently, when they were gathered round the stove. "Well, it behooves him to be. I don't know what he'll do when the Indians are gone."
"Mr. Levine," asked Lydia, "where'll the Indians go?"
John shrugged his shoulders. "Go to the devil, most of them."
"Oh, but that seems terrible!" cried Lydia.
"No more terrible than the way they live and die on the reservation. My dear child, don't develop any sentiment for the Indian. He's as doomed as the buffalo. It's fate or life or evolution working out—whatever your fancy names it. No sickly gush will stop it. As long as the Indian has a pine or a pelt, we'll exploit him. When he has none, we'll kick him out, like the dead dog he is."
Lydia, her eyes round, her lips parted, did not reply. For a moment she saw the Levine that the world saw, cold, logical, merciless. John interpreted her expression instantly and smiled. "Don't look at me so, young Lydia. I'm just being honest. The rest talk about 'freeing the Indian.' I say damn the Indian, enrich the whites."
"It—it makes me feel sort of sick at my stomach," replied Lydia, slowly. "I suppose you're right, but I can't help feeling sorry for Charlie Jackson and my old squaw."
Levine nodded understandingly and turned to Amos. "What's the talk in the factory?" he asked.
During the half hour that followed, Lydia did not speak again nor did she hear any of the conversation. New voices were beginning to whisper to her. Try as she would to hush them with her faith in her father and John, they continued to query: How about the Indians? Whose is the land? What do you yourself believe?
When Levine rose at nine to leave, she followed him to the door. "Adam and I'll walk a way with you," she said, "while Dad puts his chickens to bed."
"Fine!" exclaimed John. "My wheel is out of commission so I have to walk to the trolley."
He glanced at Lydia a trifle curiously however. This was a new venture on her part. It was a clear, cold, starlit night. Lydia trudged along for a few moments in silence. Then Levine pulled her hand through his arm.
"Out with it, young Lydia," he said.
"Do you suppose," she asked, "that God is something like ether—or like electricity—in the air, everywhere, something that sort of holds us together, you know?"
"Well," replied John, slowly, "I wouldn't want to believe that. I want to find a God we can know and understand. A God that's tender and—and human, by Jove."
Lydia looked up at him quickly in the starlight. "After what you said about Indians to-night, you can't believe God could be tender and—and let that happen!"
Levine returned her look and smiled. "You score there, honey. Lydia, you're growing up. Your head's above my shoulder now."
The young girl nodded carelessly. "But I wanted to talk to you about taking the reservation, not about me."
"I guess we'd better do that another time. I don't dare to have you walk further with me. This is a lonesome road back for you. And besides, I don't want you to scold me."
"Scold you!" Lydia paused in her astonishment. "Why, I love you as much as I do anybody in the world. How could I scold you?"
Levine looked down into the shadowy, childish eyes. "Couldn't you? Well, you're a dear, anyhow. Now scoot and I'll watch till you reach the gate."
Lydia hesitated. She felt a change in John's manner and wondered if she had hurt his feelings. "Kiss me good night, then," she said. "You don't do it as regularly as you used to. If I don't watch you, you'll be finding some one else to travel with you."
John turned the little face up and kissed her gently on the forehead, but Lydia with rare demonstrativeness threw her arms about his neck and kissed his lips with a full childish smack.
"There!" she said complacently. "Come on, Adam! Don't wait, Mr.
Levine. I'm safe with Adam."
But John Levine did wait, standing with his hand against his lips, his head bowed, till he heard the gate click. Then he lifted his face to the stars. "God," he whispered, "why do You make me forty-five instead of twenty-five?"