In the third place, Kent asked her to go with him to the last party and, to Lydia's mind, a notable conversation took place at that time.
"Thanks, Kent," said Lydia, carelessly, "but I'm going with Billy."
"Billy! Always Billy!" snorted Kent. "Why, you and I were friends before we ever heard of Billy!"
"Yes," returned Lydia calmly, "and in all these years this is the first time you've asked me to go to a party. I've often wondered why."
Kent moved uncomfortably. "Pshaw, Lyd, you know I always went with some girl I was having a crush on—that was why."
"And don't you ever ask a girl to go to a party unless you have a crush on her?" asked Lydia, mischievously.
Kent gave her a clear look. "No!" he replied.
Lydia flushed, then she said, slowly, "That's only half true, Kent. You've always liked me as I have you. But you've always been ashamed of my clothes. I don't blame you a bit, but you can imagine how I feel about Billy, who's taken me, clothes or no clothes."
It was Kent's turn to flush and he did so to such an extent that Lydia was sorry for him while she waited for him to answer.
"Hang it, Lyd, I've been an infernal cad, that's all!"
"And," Lydia went on, mercilessly, "I've got nothing to wear now but the same old graduating dress. I suppose you were hoping for better things?"
"Stop it!" Kent shouted. "I deserve it, but I'm not going to take it. I'm asking you for just one reason and that is, I've waked up to the fact that you're the finest girl in the world. No one can hold a candle to you."
There was a sudden lilt in Lydia's voice that did not escape Kent as she answered laughingly, "Well, if you feel the same after seeing Margery this summer, I'll be glad to go to one of the hops next fall with you, and thank you, deeply, Mr. Moulton."
"All right," said Kent, soberly. "The first hop next fall is mine and as many more as I can get."
It was late in the spring and after the conversation with Kent, that it began to be rumored about town that ex-Senator Alvord's office was at the bottom of the Indian investigation. Billy had been called in to testify and had shown an uncanny amount of knowledge of fraudulent land deals and Alvord had corroborated many of his statements.
Kent accused Billy of this openly, one Sunday afternoon at Lydia's. They were sitting on the lake shore, for the day was parching hot. Both the young men were in flannels and hatless, and lolled on the grass at Lydia's feet, as she sat with her back against a tree. She noticed how Kent was all grace, and ease, while Billy, whose face had lately become thinner, was all gaunt angles.
"I'm willing to take the blame, if necessary," said Billy.
Kent sat up with sudden energy. "Look here, if it once got round town that you're the father of this, you'll be run out of Lake City."
Billy laughed. "Oh, no I won't! All you respectable citizens have got too many troubles of your own."
"Nice thing to do to your friends and neighbors, Bill," Kent went on, excitement growing in his voice as he realized the import of Billy's acknowledgment. "What the deuce did you do it for?"
Billy shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. Kent appealed to Lydia. "Would you have gone to parties with him if you'd known what he was doing to his town, Lyd?"
Billy was still lying on both elbows, industriously herding a pair of ants. He did not look up at Lydia as she stared at his massive blond head.
"Kent, I knew it," said Lydia, after a pause.
"You knew it! You let a lot of sickly sentimentality ruin Lake City in the eyes of the world? Not only that. Think what's coming to John Levine! Think what's coming to me, though I've done little enough!"
"Then I'm glad it came to stop you; while you'd still done little!" cried Lydia.
"Nonsense!" snapped Kent. "Of course, you don't expect anything but gush from a girl about the Indians. But I don't see what you get out of it, Bill. Who's paying you? Are you going to run for president on the purity ticket?"
"There's no use in my trying to tell you why I did it," grunted Billy.
"No, there isn't," agreed Kent. "But I'll tell you this much. Bill, you and I break right here and now. I've no use for a sneak."
Again Billy shrugged his shoulders. Lydia looked at the two in despair, then she smiled and cried, "Oh, there's Margery! Isn't she lovely!"
It was Margery, just home from boarding-school, where she gaily announced as she shook hands she had been "finally finished."
"Though," she added. "Daddy wants to pack me right off again because of this silly investigation. As if I wanted to miss the fun of viewing all our best family skeletons!"
"Margery," cried Lydia, quickly, "you're so beautiful that you're simply above envy. What a duck of a dress!"
"Isn't it!" agreed Margery. "Kent, do get me a chair. I'll spoil all my ruffles on the grass. Well! Here I am! And what were you all discussing so solemnly when I interrupted?"
"Indian graft!" said Billy, laconically.
"Isn't it awful! And isn't it funny! You know, I was actually proud that I lived in Lake City. The girls used to point me out in school to visitors."
Margery, exquisite in her dainty gown, her wonderful black eyes gleaming with fun, as a sample of Lake City dishonesty appealed to the sense of humor of her audience and they all laughed, though Lydia felt her throat tighten strangely as she did so,—Margery, made exquisite on the money of blind squaws and papooses that froze to death!
"Daddy is all worked up, though I told him they certainly hadn't done anything much to him, so far, and I'd feel real neglected if they didn't find he had an Indian wife up his sleeve," Margery went on. "Oh, Billy, by the way. Daddy says he thinks Senator Alvord started the whole thing. Did he?"
"Yes, and I helped," replied Billy shortly.
"Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself," cried Margery, airily. "Don't you, Lydia?"
"No, I don't, I'm proud of him, though I'm scared to death," said
Lydia. "Things are so much worse than I thought they'd be."
"Well, I just tell you, Billy Norton," there was a sudden shrill note in Margery's voice, "if anything really horrid is unearthed about Daddy, I'll never speak to you again. Would you, Kent?"
"I don't intend to anyhow," replied Kent, coolly. "How'd you come out,
Marg?"
"I walked from the trolley. I'd no idea it was so hot."
"Let me take you home in my toot-toot."
"But I just got here," protested Margery.
"It's now or never," said Kent, rising, "I've got to run along."
"Oh, if it's that serious!" Margery took Kent's arm. "By-by, Lydia!
Come over and see my new dresses."
After they were gone, Billy sat up and looked at Lydia. Neither spoke for a few moments. The sun was sinking and all the world was enveloped in a crimson dust. There had been a drought now for six weeks. Even Amos' garden was languishing.
"Lydia," said Billy, "I'm going to quit. You know I've worked with
Charlie Jackson right along."
"Quit? But Billy, why I—I didn't think you minded Kent and Margery that much!"
"I don't mind them at all. But, Lydia, I found yesterday my father got one hundred and twenty acres from a ten-year-old full-blood boy for five dollars and a bicycle. Last week Charlie unearthed a full-blood squaw from whom your father had gotten two hundred and forty acres for an old sewing machine and twenty-five dollars. I've done so much for the Indians and Charlie is so fond of you that he'll shut these Indians up, but I can't go on, after that, of course."
Lydia was motionless. Over the house top, the great branches of the pine were turned to flames. The long drawn notes of a locust sounded above the steady drone of the crickets. Lydia had a curiously old feeling.
"I can't go on, Lydia," Billy repeated. "My fine old father and dear old Amos! I can't."
"Yes, you'll go on, Billy," Lydia's voice was very low. "After I faced what would come to John Levine through this, I can face anything."
Billy gave a little groan and bowed his head on Lydia's knee. Suddenly she felt years older than Billy. She smoothed his tumbled blond hair.
"Go on, Billy. Our ancestors left England for conscience' sake. And our grandfathers both laid down their lives for the Union."
Lydia ended with a little gulp of embarrassment. Billy caught her hand and sat up, looking eagerly through the gloaming at her face.
"I told you all the battles of the world were fought for a woman," he said. "Dear, I'll go on, though it'll break mother's heart."
"It won't break her heart," said Lydia. "Women's hearts don't break over that sort of thing."
"Lydia!" called Amos from the doorway, "aren't you going to give me any supper to-night?"
"Lord, it's two hours past milking time!" groaned Billy, and he started on a dog-trot for home.
CHAPTER XVI
DUCIT AMOR PATRIAE
"The same soil that nourishes the Indian and the white, nourishes me.
Yet they do not know that thus we are blood brothers."—The Murmuring
Pine.
It was the last week in August when John Levine was summoned before the commission. Lydia and Amos were summoned with him.
Lydia was frightened, Amos was irritable and sullen by turns after the summons finally came. They were due at the hearing at nine o'clock and arrived a little late. Amos had refused to be hurried.
The room in which the hearing was held was big and cool, with a heavily carpeted floor and walls lined with black walnut bookcases. There were two long tables at one end of the room behind one of which sat the three commissioners. At the other table were the official stenographers and Charlie Jackson. Before the tables were chairs and here were John Levine and Kent, Pa Norton, and Billy, old Susie and a younger squaw, with several bucks.
Lydia and her father dropped into empty seats and Lydia gave a little sigh of relief when Levine caught her eye across the room and smiled at her. She looked at the commissioners curiously. They were talking in undertones to one another and she thought that they all looked tired and harassed. She knew them fairly well from the many newspaper pictures she had seen of them. The fat gentleman, with penetrating blue eyes and a clean-shaven face, was Senator Smith of Texas. The roly-poly man, with black eyes and a grizzled beard, was Senator Elway of Maine, and the tall, smooth-shaven man with red hair was Senator James of New York.
"Mr. Levine," said Senator Smith, suddenly, "we are sorry to have to put you to this inconvenience. Believe us, we find our task no more savory than you do."
Levine gave his slow, sardonic grin. "Don't apologize, gentlemen.
Only make the ordeal as short as you can."
"We have done that," said Elway. "We found that you had carried on so many—er—transactions that we finally decided to choose three or four sample cases and let our case stand on those. First, we have found that full bloods have been repeatedly sworn as mixed bloods, in order that their lands might be alienated. A curious idea, Mr. Levine, to attempt to legalize an illegality by false swearing. Jackson, call Crippled Bear."
Charlie, who had been sitting with arms folded, his somber eyes on Lydia, spoke quickly to one of the bucks, who rose and took the empty chair by Charlie.
He began to talk at once, Charlie interpreting slowly and carefully.
"I am a mixed blood. I speak English pretty well when I am with only one white. With so many, my English goes. Many moons ago the man Levine found me drunk in the snow. He picked me up and kept me in his house over night. When I was sober, he fed me. Then he made this plan. I was to gather half a dozen half-breeds together, he could trust. In the spring he would come up to the reservation and talk to us. I did this and he came. We were very hungry when he met us in the woods and he gave us food and money. Then he told us he was going to get the big fathers at Washington to let us sell our pines so we could always have money and food. Never be hungry any more—never."
Charlie's voice was husky as he said this and he looked at Levine with his teeth bared, like a wolf, Lydia thought.
"Then he said while he was getting that done, he would pay us a little every month to go through the woods and chop down the best trees. The Big Father will let whites get 'dead and down' timber out of Indian woods, he said. But not let whites cut any. So we say yes, and though full bloods are very mad when we cut down big trees, we do it. For many moons we do it and in winter, white men haul it to sawmills.
"Every little while, Levine comes up there and we have a council and tell him everything that happens. All about things Marshall and other whites do. And he pays us always. Then he tells us that the Big Father will let mixed bloods sell their pine lands but not full bloods. So then we agree when he wants any full blood land to swear that any full blood is mixed. And we have done this now, perhaps twenty times."
The mixed blood and Charlie paused, and Levine leaned forward.
"Crippled Bear," he said, "why did you tell all this?"
Crippled Bear Jerked a swarthy thumb at Billy Norton. "That white," he answered in English, "tell me if I tell truth, maybe I get back all lands and pine. I like that, you un'stand—for then I sell 'em again, un'stand."
A little ripple of laughter went through the room, though John himself did not smile. He looked at young Norton with his black eyes half closed.
Mr. Smith took up a paper. "I have here, Mr. Levine, a statement of your dealings with the Lake City Lumber Company. You have had sawed by them during the past six or eight years millions of feet of pine lumber. I find that you are holding Indian lands in the name of Lydia Dudley and her father, Amos Dudley, these lands legally belonging to full bloods. Amos Dudley is also the purchaser of land from full bloods, as is William Norton, Senior, through you."
Levine rose quickly. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "surely you can find enough counts against me without including Miss Dudley, who has never heard of the matters you mention."
Commissioner James spoke for the first time. "Suppose we go on with the witnesses before we open any discussion with Mr. Levine. Jackson, what have these squaws to tell? Or first, what about the other bucks?"
When Charlie had called the last of these Levine spoke, "I'd like to call the Government Roll-maker, Mr. Hardy."
A small man, who had slipped into the room unnoticed during the proceedings, came forward.
"What is your business, Mr. Hardy?" asked Levine.
"I am sent here by the Indian office to make a Roll of the Indians on this reservation, in the attempt to discover which are full and which mixed bloods."
"Do you find your task difficult, Mr. Hardy?" Levine's voice was whimsical.
"Very! The Government allows a man to claim his Indian rights when he has as little as one sixty-fourth of Indian blood in his veins. On the other hand, the older Indians are deadly ashamed of white blood in their veins and hate to admit it."
"Mr. Hardy, you have your Rolls with you? Yes? Well, tell me the blood status of each of these witnesses."
The room was breathless while the little Roll-maker ran through his list. According to this not one of the witnesses against Levine was a full blood nor one of the Indians from whom he had taken land. Even old Susie and Charlie's sister, he stated, had white blood in their veins.
"It's a lie!" shouted Charlie. "This man Hardy is paid by Levine!"
"Gently, Jackson!" said Senator James. "Mr. Levine, do you wish to call more witnesses?"
"Not for the present," replied John. "Let Jackson go on."
Charlie called old Susie. And old Susie, waving aside any attempts on Charlie's part to help, told of the death of her daughter from starvation and cold, this same daughter having sold her pines to Levine for a five-dollar bill and a dollar watch. She held out the watch toward Levine in one trembling old hand.
"I find this in dress, when she dead. She strong. It take her many days to die. I old. I pray Great Spirit take me. No! I starve! I freeze! I no can die. She young. She have little baby. She die."
Suddenly, she flung the watch at Levine's feet and sank trembling into her chair.
There was silence for a moment. In at the open window came the rumble of a street-car. Levine cleared his throat.
"All this is dramatic, of course, but doesn't make me the murderer of the squaw."
"No! but you killed my father!" shouted Charlie Jackson. And rising, he hurled forth the story he had told Lydia, years before. Lydia sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fastened in horror on Charlie's face. A great actor had been lost in creating Charlie an Indian. He pictured his father's death, his sister's two attempts at revenge with a vividness and power that held even Levine spell-bound. It seemed to Lydia that the noose was fastened closer round John's neck with every word that was uttered.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. "Stop, Charlie! Stop!" she screamed.
"You shan't say any more!"
Senator Elway rapped on the table. "You're out of order, Miss Dudley," he exclaimed, sharply.
Lydia had forgotten to be embarrassed. "I can't help it if I am," she insisted, "I won't have Charlie Jackson picturing Mr. Levine as a fiend, while I have a tongue to speak with. I know how bad the Indian matters are. Nobody's worried about it more than I have. But Mr. Levine's not a murderer. He couldn't be."
The three commissioners had looked up at Lydia with a scowl when she had interrupted Charlie. Now the scowl, as they watched her flushed face, gave way to arched eyebrows and a little smile, that was reflected on every face in the room except Charlie Jackson's.
"Lydia, you keep out of this," he shouted. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do too!" stormed Lydia. "I—"
"Order! Let Jackson finish, Miss Dudley," said Senator Smith.
"I can't let him finish," cried Lydia, "until I tell you about Mr. Levine. He's been as much to me as my own father ever since my mother died when I was a little girl. He's understood me as only my own mother could, hasn't he, Daddy!"
Amos nodded, with a little apologetic glance at the commissioners. Levine's eyes were fastened on Lydia's face with an expression that was as sweet as it was fathomless. Charlie Jackson stood biting his nails and waiting, his affection for Lydia holding in abeyance his frenzied loyalty to his father.
"You think he could murder when he could hold a little girl on his knees and comfort her for the death of her little sister, when he taught her how to find God, when—oh, I know he's robbed the Indians—so has my own father, it seems, and so has Pa Norton, and so has Kent, and all of them are dear people. They've all been wrong. But think of the temptation, Mr. Commissioner! Supposing you were poor and the wonderful pines lay up there, so easy to take."
Senator Elway would have interrupted, but Senator James laid a hand on his arm. "It's all informal, let her have her say," he whispered. "It's the first bright spot in all the weeks of the hearing."
"Did you ever feel land hunger yourself," Lydia went on eagerly, "to look at the rows and rows of pine and think what it would mean to own them, forever! It's the queerest, strongest hunger in the world. I know, because I've had it. Honestly, I have, as strongly as any one here—only—I knew Charlie Jackson and this awful tragedy of his and I knew his eyes would haunt me if I took Indian lands."
"You're covering a good deal of ground and getting away from the specific case, Miss Dudley," said, Smith. "Of course, what you say doesn't exonerate Mr. Levine. On the other hand, Jackson has no means of proving him accessory to the murder of his father. We've threshed that out with Jackson before. What you say of Mr. Levine's character is interesting but there remains the fact that he has been proceeding fraudulently for years in his relations to the Indian lands. You yourself don't pretend to justify your acts, do you, Mr. Levine?"
Lydia sat down and Levine slowly rose and looked thoughtfully out of the window. "The legality or illegality of the matter has nothing to do with the broader ethics of the case, though I think you will find, gentlemen, that my acts are protected by law," he said. "The virgin land lies there, inhabited by a degenerate race, whose one hope of salvation lay in amalgamation with the white race. An ignorant government, when land was plenty and the tribe was larger, placed certain restrictions on the reservation. When land became scarce, and the tribe dwindled to a handful, those restrictions became wrong. It was inevitable that the whites should override them. Knowing that the ethics of my acts and those of other people would be questioned, I went to Congress to get these restrictions removed. If another two years could have elapsed, before these investigations had been begun, the fair name of Lake City never would have been smirched." Levine's hand on the back of his chair tightened as he looked directly at Billy Norton.
Once more Lydia came to her feet. "Oh, Mr. Levine," she exclaimed, "don't put all the blame on Billy! Really, it's my fault. He wouldn't have done it if I hadn't agreed that it was right. And he would have stopped when he found that Dad and his father had taken full blood lands only—why—why, I said that if I could stand his showing that you had been—crooked—up there, I could stand anything and I made him go on."
She stopped with a little break in her voice that was not unlike a sob.
And for the first time there spread over John Levine's face a blush, so
dark, so agonizing, that the men about him turned their eyes away.
With a little groan, he sat down. Lydia clasped her hands.
"Oh, it is all my fault," she repeated brokenly, "all the trouble that's come to Lake City."
Billy Norton jumped up. "That's blamed nonsense!" he began, when Smith interrupted him, impatiently.
"Be seated, Norton." Then, gently, to Lydia, "My dear, you mean that, knowing what an investigation would mean to the people you love, you backed young Norton in instigating one. That you knew he would not go on without your backing?"
"Yes, sir," faltered Lydia.
"Can you tell us why?" asked Elway, still more gently.
Lydia, whose cheeks were burning and whose eyes were deep with unshed tears, twisted her hands uncomfortably and looked at Billy.
"Go ahead, Lyd," he said, reassuringly.
"Because it was right," she said, finally. "Because—Ducit Amor Patriae—-you know, because no matter whether the Indians were good or bad, we had made promises to them and they depended on us." She paused, struggling for words.
"I did it because I felt responsible to the country like my ancestors did, in the Civil War and in the Revolution, to—to take care of America, to keep it clean, no matter how it hurt. I—I couldn't be led by love of country and see my people doing something contemptible, something that the world would remember against us forever, and not try to stop it, no matter how it hurt."
Trembling so that the ribbon at her throat quivered, she looked at the three commissioners, and sat down.
James cleared his throat. "Mr. Dudley, did you know your daughter's attitude when you undertook to get some pine lands?"
Amos pulled himself to his feet. His first anger at Lydia had given way to a mixture of feelings. Now, he swallowed once or twice and answered, "Of course, I knew she was sympathetic with the Indians, but I don't know anything about the rest of it."
The commissioners waited as though expecting Amos to go on. He fumbled with his watch chain for a moment, staring out the window. With his thin face, his high forehead and sparse hair, he never looked more like the picture of Daniel Webster than now.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I'm a New Englander and I'm frank to admit that
I've wandered a long way from the old ideals, like most of the New
Englanders in America. But that isn't saying, gentlemen, that I'm
not—not darned proud of Lydia!"
There was a little murmur through the room and Senator Elway smiled, a trifle sadly. "Mr. Dudley," he said, "we're all proud of Lydia. She's made our unsavory task seem better worth while."
"I suggest that we adjourn for lunch," said Smith. "Miss Dudley, you need not return."
While her father paused to speak to Kent and Levine, Lydia made her escape. She wanted more than anything in the world to be alone, but when she reached home, Ma Norton and Lizzie were waiting at the cottage, both of them half sick with anxiety. They were not reassured by Lydia's story of the morning session, although Ma said,
"Of course, it's the disgrace of the thing that worries us. Pa and Billy say all this commission can do is to present their evidence to Congress. I'm not saying, of course, that you weren't right plucky to take the stand you did, Lydia. And I'm proud of Billy though he is bringing trouble on his poor father!"
Lydia spent the afternoon with Adam in the woods. She expected John Levine to come home with her father to supper, and for the first time in her life, she did not want to meet her best loved friend. But she might have spared herself this anxiety, for Amos came home alone. Levine was busy, he said.
Amos was in a curiously subdued mood. Whatever Lydia had expected of him, she had not expected the almost conciliatory attitude he took toward her. It embarrassed her far more than recriminations would have.
"I do think, Lydia," he said mildly, after they had discussed the morning session, "you should have told me what was going on. But there, I suppose, I'd have raised Cain, if you had."
"Is Mr. Levine very angry with me?" asked Lydia.
"He didn't say. I don't see how he can be. After all, the stuff was bound to come out, sooner or later. He's got something up his sleeve. This experience's done one thing. It's brought all the different factions together. Disgrace loves company as well as misery."
"I'm so worried about it all!" sighed Lydia.
"Kind of late in the day for you to worry," sniffed Amos. "I suppose Billy's worrying too! But there, I guess you two have put some saving grace into Lake City, in the commission's eyes. Of course, I'm going to give up any claim on those lands."
Amos pulled at his pipe thoughtfully and looked at Lydia's tired, wistful face complacently. He did not tell her that the three commissioners had individually and collectively congratulated him on Lydia and their praise had been such that he felt that any disgrace he had suffered in connection with the Indian lands had been more than counteracted by Lydia's performance.
To Lydia's pain and disappointment, Levine did not come to the cottage before he returned to Washington, which he did the week following the hearing. And then, all thought of her status with him was swallowed up in astonishment over the revelations that came out early in September when Dave Marshall and the Indian Agent were called before the commission.
Dave Marshall was the owner of the Last Chance! The Last Chance where "hussies" lay in wait like vultures for the Indian youths, took their government allowances, took their ancient Indian decency, and cast them forth to pollute their tribe with drink and disease. The Last Chance! The headquarters for the illegal selling of whisky to Indians. Where Indians were taught to evade the law, to carry whisky into the reservation and where in turn the bounty for their arrest was pledged to Marshall. The Last Chance, the main source of Dave Marshall's wealth!
Even Lake City was horrified by these revelations. People began to remove their money from his bank and for a time a run was threatened, then Dave resigned as president and the run was stayed. The drugstore owned by Dave was boycotted. The women of the town began to cut Margery and Elviry. The minister of the Methodist Church asked Dave for his resignation as Trustee.
To say that old Lizzie was pleased by the revelations would be perhaps to do the old lady an injustice. Yet the fact remains that she did go about with a knowing, "I told you so" air, that smacked of complacency.
"He always was just skulch," she insisted to Lydia. "When he was a child, he was the kind of a brat mothers didn't want their children to play with. I always prayed he'd get his come-uppers, and Elviry too. But I am sorry for Margery. Poor young one! Her future's ruined."
Lydia, sitting on the front steps in the lovely September afternoons, rubbed Adam's ears, watched the pine and the Norton herds and thought some long, long thoughts. Finally, one hazy Saturday afternoon, she gathered a great bunch of many colored asters and started off, without telling Lizzie of her destination.
It was nearly five o'clock when she stopped at the Marshalls' gate. The front of the house was closed, but nothing daunted, she made her way round to the kitchen door, which was open. Elviry answered her rap.
"Oh, it's Lydia," she said, brusquely. "What do you want?"
"I brought Marg some flowers," answered Lydia, awkwardly.
Elviry hesitated. "Margery's been having a headache and I don't know as she'd want to see you."
Lydia was not entirely daunted. "Well, if you're getting supper you might let me come and sit in the kitchen a few minutes. It's quite a walk in from the cottage."
Elviry opened the screen door and Lydia marched in and paused. Dave Marshall was sitting by the kitchen table, his hat on the back of his head, a pile of newspapers on the floor beside him. He did not speak to Lydia when she came in, but Lydia nodded brightly at him and said, "You like to sit in the kitchen, the way Dad does, don't you?"
She sat down in the rocker by the dining-room door and Elviry began to stir a kettle of catsup that was simmering on the back of the stove.
This was worse than Lydia had thought it would be. She had not calculated on Dave's being at home. However, her fighting blood was up.
"You haven't asked me about my clothes, Mrs. Marshall," she said.
"Don't you think I did pretty well with this skirt?"
Elviry glanced at the blue serge skirt. "It'll do," she answered listlessly.
Lydia looked at Dave desperately. At that moment there was a light step in the dining-room, and Margery came into the kitchen. When she saw Lydia she gasped.
"Hadn't you heard? Oh, Lydia! You came anyhow!" and suddenly Margery threw herself down and sobbed with her face in Lydia's lap.
Elviry threw her apron over her head and Dave, with a groan, dropped his head on his chest. For a moment, there was only the crackling of the fire in the stove and Margery's sobs to be heard.
Then Dave said, "What did you come for, Lydia? You only hurt yourself and you can't help us. I don't know what to do! God! I don't know what to do!"
"I don't see why everybody acts so," cried Elviry, "as if what you'd done was any worse than every one else's doings."
Margery raised her head. "Of course it's worse! A thousand times worse! I could have stood Dad's even having an Indian wife, better than this."
Dave looked at Margery helplessly and his chin quivered. Lydia noticed then how old he was looking.
"I want Margery and her mother to pack up and go away—for good," said Dave to Lydia. "I'll close up here and follow when I can. None of these cases will ever come to anything in our state court. It's the disgrace—and the way the women folks take it."
"I—I've been thinking," said Lydia, timidly, "that what you ought to do—"
Margery was sitting back on the floor now and she interrupted bitterly. "I don't see why you should try to help us, Lyd. Mother's always treated you dirt mean."
"It's not because of your mother," said Lydia, honestly. "I couldn't even try to forgive her—but—your father did a great favor to me and once I promised him then to be his friend. And you, Margery, you were fond of—of little Patience, and she did love you so! If she'd lived, I know she'd have wanted me to stand by you."
"She was a dear little kiddie," said Margery. "I always meant to tell you how I cried when she died, and then somehow, you were so silent, I couldn't."
The old lines round Lydia's mouth deepened for a minute, then she swallowed and said,
"I don't think it would do a bit of good for you all to go away. The story would follow you. Mr. Marshall ought to sell out everything and buy a farm. Let Mrs. Marshall go off for a visit, if she wants to, and let Margery come and stay with me a while and go to college."
Dave raised his head. "That's what I'd rather do, Lydia, for myself. Just stay here and try to live it down. I'd like to farm it. Always intended to."
Margery wrung her hands. "Oh, I don't see how I can! If it had been anything, anything but the Last Chance. Everybody will cut me and talk about me."
"Oh, well, Margery," said Lydia, a little impatiently, "it's the first trouble you've had in all your life and it won't kill you. Anybody that's as pretty as you are can live down anything. I know our house is awful scrimpy, but we'd have some good times, anyhow. Kent and Billy will stand by us and we'll pull through. See if we don't."
"I don't see why she needs to go to your house," said Elviry. "Let her stay right here, and go up to college with you if she will. And I don't want to go live on a farm, either."
"Mother, you don't understand, yet!" exclaimed Margery.
"Elviry," said Dave grimly, "our day is over. All we can hope to save out of the wreck is a future for Margery. Just get that through your head once and for all. I think Lydia's idea is horse sense. But it's for Margery to decide."
Margery got up from her place on the floor. "I thought we'd sell out and go to Europe for the rest of our lives," she said, "but as Lydia says, the story would follow us there. Dad," sharply, "you aren't going to sell the Last Chance and use that money?"
"I closed it up, last week," said Dave shortly. "I'm going to have the place torn down."
Margery rubbed her hand over her forehead. "Well," she said, "I don't see that I'd gain anything but a reputation for being a quitter, if I went to Lydia's. I'll stay with you folks, but I'll go to college, if Lydia'll stand by me."
Lydia rose. "Then that's settled. On Monday we'll register. I'll meet you on the eight o'clock car."
"I can't thank you, Lyd,—" began Margery.
"I don't want any thanks," said Lydia, making for the door, where Dave intercepted her with outstretched hand.
Lydia looked up into his dark face and her own turned crimson. "I can't shake hands," she said, "honestly, I can't. The Last Chance and the—the starving squaws make me sick. I'll stand by Margery and help you—but I can't do that."
Dave Marshall dropped his hand and turned away without a word and Lydia sped from the house into the sunset.
Amos heard Lydia's story of her call with a none too pleased face. "I don't think I want you mixing up with them, in any way," he said.
"But let me help Margery," pleaded Lydia, "Little Patience did love her so!"
"Well—Margery—you can help her," he agreed, reluctantly, "but you can't go near their house again. Margery will have to do all the visiting."
CHAPTER XVII
THE MILITARY HOP
"Who shall say that I do not understand what the wind sings in my branches or that I am less than the white or more than the Indian?"—The Murmuring Pine.
In spite of the fact that Levine had avoided her, after the hearing, and in spite of all the many half tragic ramifications of the reservation trouble, Lydia was not unhappy. In fact, when Registration day dawned she awoke with a sense of something good impending, sang as she dressed, and piloted Margery gaily through the complications of entering the University as a "special" student.
Margery, for the first month or so, was silent and kept as close as possible to Lydia's apron strings. But Lydia had prophesied truly. No girl as beautiful as Margery could be kept in Coventry long and though she refused for a time to go to parties, it was not long before Margery was taking tramps with the college boys and joining happily enough in the simple pleasures at the cottage.
Lydia did not hear from Kent until a week before the first college hop, late in October. Then she received a formal note from him, reminding her of his invitation.
"Oh, Lyd!" exclaimed Margery, "aren't you lucky! I haven't seen Kent or heard from him since our trouble!"
"Neither have I," said Lydia. "And I suspect he's so cross with me that he hates to keep this engagement. But I don't care. I wish I had a new dress. But I've made the sleeves small in my organdy and made a new girdle. It looks as well as could be expected!" she finished, comically.
"Lydia," cried Margery, suddenly, "I've a whole closet full of party dresses I won't wear this year and you and I are just of a size, won't you wear one—take one and keep it—please, Lydia!"
Lydia flushed and shook her head.
"Is it because they were bought with Dad's money?" asked Margery.
Lydia's flush grew deeper. "I couldn't take it anyway, Margery," she protested. But Margery tossed her head and was silent for the rest of the afternoon.
The hop was a success, a decided success, in spite of the organdy. Kent was inclined to be stiff, at first, and to wear a slightly injured air, and yet, mingled with this was a frank and youthful bravado. And there could be no doubt that among the college boys, Kent was more or less of a hero. It was something to boast of, evidently, to have one's name coupled with Levine's in the great scandal.
Kent had supposed that he would have some trouble in filling Lydia's card for her, but to his surprise, he found that in her timid way, Lydia was something of a personage among the older college boys and the younger professors.
"Oh, you have Miss Dudley. Let me have three dances, will you," said the instructor in Psychology. "How pretty she is to-night!"
"Lydia is a peach," Kent stated briefly. "One two-step is the best I can do for you."
"Come now, Moulton, a two-step and a waltz," said Professor Willis. "I haven't seen Miss Dudley since college opened. Isn't her hair wonderful to-night!"
Gustus was there with Olga. "Gimme a waltz with Lydia, Kent," he demanded. "Who'd ever thought she'd grow up so pretty! If she could dress well—"
"Her card's full," grunted Kent. "And she dresses better'n any girl I know. What's the matter with that dress?"
The two young men stood watching Lydia, who was chatting with Professor Willis. The dress was out of style. Even their masculine eyes recognized that fact, yet where in the room was there a mass of dusty gold hair like Lydia's, where such scarlet cheeks, where such a look of untried youth?
"Oh, well, it was just something Olga said," began Gustus.
"Olga makes me sick," said Kent, and he stalked over to claim a waltz with Lydia.
It was altogether an intoxicating evening and at its end Lydia pulled on her last winter's overcoat and clambered into Kent's little automobile, utterly satisfied with life.
"Well, did I give you a good time, Miss?" asked Kent, as they chug-chugged down the Avenue.
"Oh, Kent, it was wonderful!"
"And you don't feel as if I were a villain any more? You've forgiven me?"
"Forgiven you? For what?"
"For not agreeing with you on the Indian question. Gee, I was sore at you, Lyd, that morning at the hearing, and yet I was like your Dad. I was proud of you, too."
"Oh, don't let's talk about it, to-night, Kent," Lydia protested.
"All right, old girl, only just remember that I can't change. I back Mr. Levine to the limit. And maybe he hasn't a surprise party coming for all of you!"
"I don't care," insisted Lydia. "I'm going to be happy to-night, and I won't talk Indians. Oh, Kent, isn't Gustus getting good-looking?"
"Too fat," replied Kent. "He drinks too much beer. And let me call your attention to something funny. As you know, he's always had trouble getting in with the college set, because of the brewery. But his father is the only well-to-do man in town who's had nothing to do with the reservation, so now, by contrast, brewing becomes a highly honorable business! And Gustus goes with 'our very best families.'"
Lydia chuckled, then said, "Margery is feeling much better. She's at our house every Sunday. You must come round and see her!"
"Why shouldn't I come to see you, Lydia?" asked Kent, with a new note in his voice.
"Why, of course, you'd see me, but Margery's always been the main attraction with you."
"Has she? Seems to me I recall a time when I couldn't endure the sight of her. And when you were the best pal I had. That's what you are, Lydia, a real pal. A fellow can flirt round with the rest of 'em, but you're the one to look forward to spending a lifetime with!"
Lydia drew a quick breath, then laughed a little uncertainly. "You were the dearest boy! Do you remember how you hated to wash your hands and that funny cotton cap you liked to wear with Goldenrod Flour printed across it?"
"Of course, I remember. And I remember how the fellows used to tease me about you. I licked Gustus twice for it, when we were in the ward schools. Lydia, let's go over those old trails together again. To-morrow's Sunday. Let's take a walk down to the Willows in the afternoon."
"All right, Kent," said Lydia, quietly, and silence fell on both of them till they drew up at the cottage gate.
Kent lifted Lydia to the ground, held both of her hands, started to speak, then with a half inarticulate, "Thank you, Lydia, and good-by till to-morrow," he jumped into the little car and was gone.
For some reason, when she woke the next morning, Lydia half hoped that the soft patter against her window was of rain drops. But it was the wind-tossed maple leaves, whose scarlet and gold were drifting deep on the lawn and garden. There never was a more brilliant October day than this, and at three o'clock, Lydia and Kent set off down the road to the Willows.
Lizzie watched them from the living-room window. "They're a handsome pair, Amos," she said. "Now aren't they?"
Amos looked up from his Sunday paper with a start. "Those young ones aren't getting sentimental, are they, Liz?" he asked, sharply.
"Well," returned Lizzie, "they might be, very naturally, seeing they're both young and good-looking. For the land sake! Don't you expect Lydia to find her young man and settle down?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Amos. "There isn't a man on earth good enough for Lydia. I don't want her to marry. I'll take care of her."
"Humph! Nothing selfish about a man, is there?" muttered Lizzie.
Kent and Lydia strolled along the leafy road, with the tang of the
autumn in their nostrils, and the blue gleam of the lake in their eyes.
It was only a half mile to the Willows and as they turned in, Kent took
Lydia's hand and drew it through his arm.
"Look," he said, "I believe there is even a little left of our cave, after all this time. What a rough little devil I was in those days. And yet, even then, Lyd, I believe I had an idea of trying to take care of you."
"You were not a rough little devil!" exclaimed Lydia, indignantly.
"You were a dear! I can never forget what you did for me, when little
Patience died."
"I was a selfish brute in lots of ways afterward, though," said Kent, moodily. "I didn't have sense enough to appreciate you, to realize—yet, I did in a way. Remember our talks up at camp? Then, of course, we never shall agree on the Indian question. But what does that amount to?"
Kent dropped Lydia's hand and faced her. "Lydia, do you care for me—care for me enough to marry me?"
Lydia turned pale. Something in her heart began to sing. Something in her brain began to stir, uncomfortably.
"Oh, Kent," she began, breathlessly, then paused and the two looked deep into each other's eyes.
"Lydia! Lydia!! I need you so!" cried Kent. "You are such a dear, such a pal, so pretty, so sweet—and I need you so! Won't you marry me, Lydia?"
He seized both her hands and held them against his cheeks.
"I've always loved you dearly, Kent, and yet," faltered Lydia, "and yet, somehow, I don't think we'd ever make each other happy."
"Not make each other happy! I'd like to know why not! Just try me,
Lydia! Try me!"
Kent's charming face was glowing. Into Lydia's contralto voice crept the note that had belonged to little Patience's day.
"I'd like to try you, dear if—— Wait, Kent, wait! Let me have my playtime, Kent. I've never had a real one, you know, till now. Let me finish college, then ask me again, will you, Kent?"
Kent jerked his head discontentedly. "I think it would be better for us to tie to each other right now. Please, Lydia dear!"
Lydia shook her head slowly. "Let me have my playtime, Kent. I don't know that side of myself at all."
Kent looked at the lake and at the little cave of long ago and back into the clear tender blue of Lydia's eyes. Then he said softly, "All right, dear! You know best. But will you give me just one kiss,—for remembrance?"
"Yes," replied Lydia, lifting her face, and Kent pulled off his cap and kissed the warm, girlish lips, tenderly, lingeringly, then, without a word, gently turned Lydia homeward.
Kent's announcement that he had broken with Billy Norton did not amount to a great deal. As winter came on, he and Billy met constantly at the cottage and outwardly at least, were friendly. The commission finished its sitting and turned its findings over to Congress. Congress instructed the District Attorney to carry the matter to the state courts. When this had been done all the incriminated heaved a vast sigh of relief, and prepared to mark time.
To tell the truth, Lydia was not giving a great deal of thought to weighty problems, this winter. No girl who finds herself with two young men in love with her, can give much thought to the world outside her own. Nor did the fact that Professor Willis made a point of appearing at the cottage at least once a month detract any from her general joy in life.
She was doing well in her studies, though outside of the occasional hop she attended with Billy or Kent, she had no part in the college social life. She was not altogether contented with the thought of preparing herself to teach. The idea gave her no mental satisfaction. She could not bring herself to believe that her real talents lay in that direction. Yet, though this dissatisfaction grew as the days went on, it did not prevent her from taking a keen pleasure in the books she read and studied.
She suddenly grew ashamed of her old E. P. Roe period and developed a great avidity for Kipling and Thomas Hardy, for Wordsworth and Stephen Phillips. To her surprise she found that Billy was more familiar with these writers than she. Kent read newspapers and nothing else.
During all Lydia's Junior year, but one fly appeared in her ointment. And this, of course, was with, reference to clothes! that perennial haunting problem of Lydia's, which only a woman who has been motherless and poverty-stricken and pretty can fully appreciate. The latter part of February, the great college social event of the year was to come, the Junior Prom. Lydia felt sure that either Kent or Billy would ask her to go and for this the organdy would not do. And for this she must have a party coat.
Lydia knew if she took the matter up with Amos he would go out and borrow money for her. She shuddered at the thought of this. He had been so bitter about her fudge selling that she dared not broach the matter of money earning to him again. Then she heard of the College Money Making Bureau. She discovered that there were girls who were earning their way through college and that the Bureau was one of the quiet ways used by the University to help them.
There was the Mending Department for example. Here were brought every week by the well-to-do students piles of mending of every variety from heelless socks and stockings, to threadbare underwear and frayed cuffs and collars. These were made into packages and farmed out to the money needing girls. The Department was located in a room in the rear of the Chemical laboratory, and was in charge of the old janitor, whose casual manner was a balm to the pride of the most sensitive.
Early in January, Lydia sneaked into the little room, and out again with a neat but heavy bundle. She got home with it and smuggled it into her room without old Lizzie's seeing it. Socks, wristbands and torn lace—there was fifty cents' worth of mending in the package! Lydia calculated that if she did a package a night for thirty nights, she would have enough money to buy the making of the party dress and cloak.
The necessity for secrecy was what made the task arduous. Lydia finished her studying as hurriedly as possible each night and went on to her room. It was bitter cold in the room when the door was closed, but she hung a dust cloth over the keyhole, a shawl over the window shade, wrapped herself in a quilt and unwrapped the bundle. By two o'clock she had finished and shivering and with aching eyes, crept into bed.
Within a week she was going about her daily work with hollow eyes and without the usual glow in her cheeks. Within two weeks, the casual glimpse of Lizzie darning one of Amos' socks gave her a sense of nausea, but she hung on with determination worthy of a better cause.
The third week she took cold, an almost unheard-of proceeding for Lydia, and in spite of all old Lizzie's decoctions, she could not throw it off. Amos insisted that Lizzie see her to bed each night with hot lemonade and hot water bottle. Lydia protested miserably until she found that it was really more comfortable to mend in bed than it was to sit quilt-wrapped in a chair. At the end of the fourth week she carried back her last bundle, and with fifteen dollars in her pocketbook, she boarded the street-car for home. She was trembling with fatigue and fever.
When she reached the cottage, she stretched out on the couch behind the old base burner with her sense of satisfaction dulled by her hard cough and the feverish taste in her mouth. She was half asleep, half in a stupor when Billy came in.
"How's the cold, Lyd?" he asked.
"I got it," she murmured hoarsely. "It'll be white mull and pink eider-down."
"What did you say?" asked Billy, coming over to the couch and peering down at her, through the dusk.
"Socks," whispered Lydia, "bushels of socks, aren't there, Billy?"
Billy picked up her hand and felt her pulse, pulled the shawl up over her chest, put his cheek down against her forehead for a moment as he murmured, "Oh, Lydia, don't be sick! I couldn't bear it!" then he hurried to the kitchen where Lizzie was getting supper.
The next thing that Lydia knew she was in her own bed and "Doc" Fulton was taking the clinical thermometer from her mouth. She was very much confused.
"Where's my fifteen dollars?" she asked.
"What fifteen dollars, little daughter?" Amos was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand.
"For my party dress—white mull—with socks—please, Daddy."
Amos looked at Lizzie. "It's what she wanted for the Junior Prom, I guess," said the old lady, "poor child."
"You shall have fifteen dollars, just as soon as you get well, honey," said Amos.
"All right," said Lydia, hoarsely, "tell Kent so's he—" She trailed off again into stupor.
It was a hard pull, a sharp, hard struggle with badly congested lungs, for two weeks. It was the first real illness Lydia had had in all her sturdy young life. Ma Norton took charge and "Doc" Fulton was there night after night. Margery came every day, with a basket, for Elviry practically fed Amos during the two weeks. Billy did chores. Kent was errand boy with the little car. And Adam sat on the doorstep for hours and howled!
And all this time Lydia wandered in a world of her own, a world that those about her were utterly unable to picture through the erratic fragments of talk she uttered from time to time. She talked to them of little Patience, of John Levine, of old Susie, She seemed to be blaming herself for the starving of an Indian baby who was confused in her mind with little Patience. She sought her fifteen dollars through wild vicissitudes, until Amos found the little purse under the couch pillow and, wondering over its contents, put it in Lydia's feverish hands. Thereafter she talked of it no more.
But Lydia was splendidly strong. One night, after ten days of stupor and delirium, she opened her eyes on Amos' haggard face. She spoke weakly but naturally. "Hello, Dad! Ask Margery to get me the pattern we were talking about. In a day or so I'll be up and around."
Amos began to cry for sheer joy.
Once she began to mend, Lydia's recovery was unbelievably rapid. On a Sunday, a week before the Junior Prom., she was able to dress and to lie on the living-room couch. During the afternoon, Kent came in. He had had one or two glimpses of the invalid before, but this was the first opportunity he'd had for a chat.
"Hello, Lyd!" he cried. "Are you going to go to the Junior Prom. with me, after all?"
"Kent, I can't go. I might be strong enough for one or two dances by that time, but I can't get my clothes done."
"Pshaw, isn't that hard luck!" Kent's voice was soft with sympathy. "Never mind, old lady! I'm so darned glad to have you getting well so fast, that the Prom. doesn't matter. Say, Lyd, Margery's come out fine, since you've been sick!"
"I know it," said Lydia. "Just think of Margery carrying Dad's meals in a basket, and helping Lizzie with the dishes. And I know she hates it worse than poison. She's out in the kitchen now, making fudge."
Kent brightened, perceptibly. "Is she? Er—Lydia, don't you think she'd go to the Prom. with me? Seems to me she's cut out society as long as she needs to."
Lydia buried her nose in a bunch of violets that Professor Willis had sent her. "I think she ought to go if she wants to," she said.
"Guess I'll ask her now," cried Kent, disappearing kitchenward.
Lydia lay watching snowflakes sift softly past the window. It was not long before Margery and Kent appeared.
"She's going!" cried Kent.
Margery's beautiful eyes were glowing. "Yes, I'm going, Lyd! And if nobody else will dance with me, Kent will take all the dances."
Old Lizzie followed in. She looked sharply at Lydia, then said, "You folks come out in the dining-room and let Lydia have a little nap."
"No, I guess I'll go home," Margery answered, "Mother's not very well to-day."
"I'll take you along in my chug-chug." Kent crossed over to the couch and took Lydia's hand, while Margery went for her wraps. "Good-by, dear," he whispered, "get well fast for me."
Lydia smiled at him over the bunch of violets.
Billy was the next caller. "I left Dad and Amos saving the Nation through Free Trade," he said. "Gee, Lydia, but you do look better! You don't suppose you could possibly go to the Prom., just for one or two dances, do you?"
Lydia shook her head. "No clothes," she said, briefly. "Ask some other girl."
"There isn't any other girl," replied Billy. "If I can't go with you,
I'll be hanged if I go at all! Lydia, I don't see why a sensible girl
like you lays such stress on clothes. Honestly, it's not like you.
Come on, be a sport and go in your usual dress."
Lydia looked at Billy's steady gray eyes, and a faint glow of comfort began to surround her heart. Sometimes she felt as if Billy understood her almost as well as John Levine did.
"Now, look here," he said, argumentatively, "you and I had better talk this clothes question out, once and for all."
Lydia giggled. "Billy, you don't know women! It can't be talked out!"
"I know you," replied the young man, stretching out his long legs to the base-burner, and looking at Lydia, "and I want you to stop worrying about your duds. I want you to let me lend you the money to get a complete party outfit with."
"Billy Norton, you know I wouldn't borrow money from a man!" exclaimed
Lydia.
"Well, then, I'll give it to Mother and you borrow it from her."
"Of course, I won't," replied Lydia. "Besides, I've got enough money I earned myself!"
"You have! Then what's all the worry about? How'd you earn it, Lyd?
I thought your father—"
Lydia dug the little pocketbook from under the sofa pillow and spread the money proudly on her shawl. "There it is and it's the root of all my troubles."
Billy looked at her suspiciously. "Young woman, how'd you earn that money?" he demanded.
"Socks! Bushels of socks, mostly," answered Lydia with a chuckle that ended in a groan. She looked at Billy whimsically and then as the sureness of his understanding came to her again, she told him the story of her little midnight sweatshop.
"Oh, dearest!" Billy burst forth with a groan when she had finished, "how could you be such a little idiot! Oh, Lydia, Lydia, I can't tell you how you wring my heart."
It seemed for a moment as if he must gather the slight little figure to his heart, but he set his teeth.
"If that darned Prom. means as much as that to you—" he began, but
Lydia interrupted him.
"It doesn't any more, Billy. I've learned a lot of things since I've been sick. I was a little idiot to work so hard for clothes! But I don't think it was all clothes. I wanted to be like other girls. I wanted to have the man that took me proud of my appearance."
She paused and Billy would have spoken, but Lydia began again.
"You see, I was never sick before, so I never realized that a sickness is a serious thing in more ways than one. I mean you can't go down to death's door and ever be quite the same afterward. I've been thinking about myself a great deal. Billy, and I'm feeling pretty small. Isn't it queer how hard it is to learn just the simplest things about living! Seems as though I learn everything with my elbows."
The two young people sat in silence, Lydia watching the snowflakes settle on the already overladen boughs of the pine. Billy watching the sensitive lines in Lydia's face change with each passing thought.
"I've made up my mind," Lydia began again, "that I've been poor too long, ever really to outgrow the effects of poverty. I suppose I'd always worry about money, even if I were taken suddenly rich! Anyhow, lots of nice people have liked me poor and I'm just not going to worry about having lovely clothes, with soft colors and—and graceful lines, any more. I'm going to take care of our lovely old mahogany furniture and try to make the cottage an attractive place for people with brains. After all, the real thinkers of the country were poor—Emerson and his circle, how simply they lived! You see, Billy, if I clutter up my mind with furniture and clothes, I won't have time to think."
Lizzie came in at this moment with a bowl of broth. "I'll hold it for you, Lydia," said Billy. "Never mind pulling the little table up, Lizzie, she's too weak to fuss with a table."
There was a remote twinkle in Lizzie's old eyes, but she gave the bowl over to Billy, and tactfully withdrew to the kitchen, where she sat down with her feet in the oven. "Drat Kent!" she said to herself.
Billy moved over to sit on the edge of the couch, and Lydia began to sip the broth, spoonful by spoonful. "It's such fun to be weak and a little helpless and have people waiting on you," she said. "It's the first time it ever happened to me."
As she spoke she was thinking how Billy had improved. How immaculate he was and how well his blue suit fitted him. There was no barnyard odor about him now! Only a whiff of the good cigars he smoked.
"Billy," she said, "what would you say if next year I took the short course in agriculture?"
Billy almost dropped the bowl. "I'd be speechless!" he exclaimed.
"I hate to think of teaching," Lydia went on, "and I'm crazy about the country and farming and so is Dad. And there's more than that to it."
What more there was to it, she did not say then, for Ma Norton came bustling in. She made no comment on Billy's posing as a table! Ma was wise and she was almost as devoted to Lydia as Billy himself.
"It's nice to see the pink coming back in your cheeks, Lydia," she said. "I just ran over to say I was going into town to do some shopping, early in the morning, and if there was anything I could do for you—?"
"No, thank you," said Lydia. "I've begun to save up now to buy a cow!"
And Ma looked on with a puzzled smile as Lydia and Billy burst into sudden shrieks of laughter.