HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER by GENE STRATTON-PORTER

HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER
by
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
Contents
I."What Kind of Shoes Are the Shoes You Wear?"
II. Cotyledon of Multiflores Canyon
III. The House of Dreams
IV. Linda Starts a Revolution
V. The Smoke of Battle
VI. Jane Meredith
VII. Trying Yucca
VIII. The Bear Cat
IX. One Hundred Per Cent Plus
X. Katy to the Rescue
XI. Assisting Providence
XII. The Lay of the Land
XIII. Leavening the Bread of Life
XIV. Saturday's Child
XV. Linda's Hearthstone
XVI. Producing the Evidence
XVII. A Rock and a Flame
XVIII. Spanish Iris
XIX. The Official Bug-Catcher
XX. The Cap Sheaf
XXI. Shifting the Responsibility
XXII. The End of Marian's Contest
XXIII. The Day of Jubilee
XXIV. Linda's First Party
XXV. Buena Moza
XXVI. A Mouse Nest
XXVII. The Straight and Narrow
XXVIII. Putting It Up to Peter
XXIX. Katy Unburdens Her Mind
XXX. Peter's Release
XXXI. The End of Donald's Contest
XXXII. How the Wasp Built Her Nest
XXXIII. The Lady of the Iris
List of Characters
LINDA STRONG, Her Father's Daughter
DR. ALEXANDER STRONG, a Great Nerve Specialist
MRS. STRONG, His Wife
EILEEN STRONG, Having
Social Aspirations
MR. AND MRS. THORNE, Neighbors of the Strongs
MARIAN THORNE, a Dreamer of Houses
JOHN GILMAN, a Man of Law
PETER MORRISON, an Author
HENRY ANDERSON, an Architect
DONALD WHITING, a High School Senior
MARY LOUISE WHITING, His Sister
JUDGE AND MRS. WHITING, a Man of Law and a Woman of Culture
KATHERINE O' DONOVAN, the Strong Cook
OKA SAYYE, a High School Senior
JAMES HEITMAN, Accidentally Rich
MRS. CAROLINE HEITMAN, His Wife
CHAPTER I. "What Kind of Shoes Are the Shoes You Wear?"
"What makes you wear such funny shoes?"
Linda Strong thrust forward a foot and critically examined the
narrow vamp, the projecting sole, the broad, low heel of her
well-worn brown calfskin shoe. Then her glance lifted to the
face of Donald Whiting, one of the most brilliant and popular
seniors of the high school. Her eyes narrowed in a manner
habitual to her when thinking intently.
"Never you mind my shoes," she said deliberately. "Kindly fix
your attention on my head piece. When you see me allowing any
Jap in my class to make higher grades than I do, then I give you
leave to say anything you please concerning my head."
An angry red rushed to the boy's face. It was an irritating fact
that in the senior class of that particular Los Angeles high
school a Japanese boy stood at the head. This was embarrassing
to every senior.
"I say," said Donald Whiting, "I call that a mean thrust."
"I have a particular reason," said Linda.
"And I have 'a particular reason'," said Donald, "for being
interested in your shoes."
Linda laughed suddenly. When Linda laughed, which was very
seldom, those within hearing turned to look at her. Hers was not
a laugh that can be achieved. There were a few high places on
the peak of Linda's soul, and on one of them homed a small flock
of notes of rapture; notes as sweet as the voice of the
white-banded mockingbird of Argentina.
"How surprising!" exclaimed Linda. "We have been attending the
same school for three years; now, you stop me suddenly to tell me
that you are interested in the shape of my shoes."
"I have been watching them all the time," said Donald. 'Can't
understand why any girl wants to be so different. Why don't you
dress your hair the same as the other girls and wear the same
kind of clothes and shoes?"
"Now look here," interposed Linda "You are flying the track.I
am willing to justify my shoes, if I can, but here you go
including my dress and a big psychological problem, as well; but
I think perhaps the why of the shoes will explain the remainder.
Does the name 'Alexander Strong' mean anything to you?"
"The great nerve specialist?" asked Donald.
"Yes," said Linda. "The man who was the author of half-dozen
books that have been translated into many foreign tongue' and
are used as authorities all over the world. He happened to be
my father There are two children in our family. I have a sister
four years older than I am who is exactly like Mother,
and she and Mother were inseparable. I am exactly like
Father; because we understood each other, and because
both of us always new, although we never mentioned it;
that Mother preferred my sister Eileen to me, Father tried
to make it up to me, so from the time I can remember I was at
his heels. It never bothered him to have me playing around in
the library while he was writing his most complicated treatise.
I have waited in his car half a day at a time, playing or
reading, while he watched a patient or delivered a lecture at
some medical college. His mental relaxation was to hike or to
motor to the sea, to the mountains, to the canyons or the
desert, and he very seldom went without me even on long trips
when he was fishing or hunting with other men. There was not
much to know concerning a woman's frame or he psychology that
Father did not know, so there were two reason why he selected my
footwear as he did. One was because he be believed high heels
and pointed toes an outrage against the nervous province, and
the other was that I could not possibly have kept pace with him
except in shoes like these. No doubt, they are the same kind I
shall wear all my life, for walking. You probably don't know
it, but my home lies near the middle of Lilac Valley and I walk
over a mile each morning and evening to and from the cars. Does
this sufficiently explain my shoes?"
"I should think you'd feel queer," said Donald.
"I suspect I would if I had time to brood over it," Linda
replied, "but I haven't. I must hustle to get to school on time
in the morning. It's nearly or quite dark before I reach home in
the evening. My father believed in having a good time. He had
superb health, so he spent most of what he made as it came to
him. He counted on a long life. It never occurred to him that a
little piece of machinery going wrong would plunge him into
Eternity in a second."
"Oh, I remember!" cried the boy.
Linda's face paled slightly.
"Yes," she said, "it happened four years ago and I haven't gotten
away from the horror of it yet, enough ever to step inside of a
motor car; but I am going to get over that one of these days.
Brakes are not all defective, and one must take one's risks."
"You just bet I would," said Donald. "Motoring is one of the
greatest pleasures of modern life. I'll wager it makes some of
the gay old boys, like Marcus Aurelius for example, want to turn
over in their graves when they see us flying along the roads of
California the way we do."
"What I was getting at," said Linda, "was a word of reply to the
remainder of your indictment against me. Dad's income stopped
with him, and household expenses went on, and war came, so there
isn't enough money to dress two of us as most of the high school
girls are dressed. Eileen is so much older that it's her turn
first, and I must say she is not at all backward about exercising
her rights. I think that will have to suffice for the question
of dress but you may be sure that I am capable of wearing the
loveliest dress imaginable, that would be for a school girl, if
I had it to wear."
"Ah, there's the little 'fly in your ointment'--'dress that would
be suitable.' I bet in your heart you think the dresses that half
the girls in high school are wearing are NOT SUITABLE!"
"Commendable perspicacity, O learned senior," said Linda, "and
amazingly true. In the few short years I had with Daddy I
acquired a fixed idea as to what kind of dress is suitable and
sufficiently durable to wear while walking my daily two miles. I
can't seem to become reconciled to the custom of dressing the
same for school as for a party. You get my idea?"
"I get it all right enough," said Donald, "but I must think
awhile before I decide whether I agree with you. Why should you
be right, and hundreds of other girls be wrong?"
"I'll wager your mother would agree with me," suggested Linda.
"Did yours?" asked Donald.
"Halfway," answered Linda. "She agreed with me for me, but not
for Eileen."
"And not for my sister," said Donald. "She wears the very
foxiest clothes that Father can afford to pay for, and when she
was going to school she wore them without the least regard as to
whether she was going to school or to a tea party or a matinee.
For that matter she frequently went to all three the same day.
"And that brings us straight to the point concerning you," said
Linda.
"Sure enough!" said Donald. "There is me to be considered! What
is it you have against me?"
Linda looked at him meditatively.
"You SEEM exceptionally strong," she said. "No doubt are good in
athletics. Your head looks all right; it indicates brains. What
I want to know is why in the world you don't us them."
"What are you getting at, anyway?" asked Donald, with more than a
hint of asperity m his voice.
"I am getting at the fact," said Linda, "that a boy as big as you
and as strong as you and with as good brain and your opportunity
has allowed a little brown Jap to cross the Pacific Ocean and a
totally strange country to learn a language foreign to him, and,
and, with the same books and the same chances, to beat you at
your own game. You and every other boy in your classes ought to
thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Before I would let a Jap,
either boy or girl, lead in my class, I would give up going to
school and go out and see if I could beat him growing lettuce and
spinach."
"It's all very well to talk," said Donald hotly.
"And it's better to make good what you say," broke in Linda, with
equal heat. "There are half a dozen Japs in my classes but no
one of them is leading, you will notice, if I do wear peculiar
shoes."
"Well, you would be going some if you beat the leading Jap in the
senior class," said Donald.
"Then I would go some," said Linda. "I'd beat him, or I'd go
straight up trying. You could do it if you'd make up your mind
to. The trouble with you is that you're wasting your brain on
speeding an automobile, on dances, and all sorts of foolishness
that is not doing you any good in any particular way. Bet you
are developing nerves smoking cigarettes. You are not
concentrating. Oka Sayye is not thinking of a thing except the
triumph of proving to California that he is head man in one of
the Los Angeles high schools. That's what I have got against
you, and every other white boy in your class, and in the long run
it stacks up bigger than your arraignment of my shoes."
"Oh, darn your shoes!" cried Donald hotly. "Forget 'em! I've got
to move on or I'll be late for trigonometry, but I don't know
when I've had such a tidy little fight with a girl, and I don't
enjoy feeling that I have been worsted. I propose another
session. May I come out to Lilac Valley Saturday afternoon and
flay you alive to pay up for my present humiliation?""
"Why, if your mother happened to be motoring that way and would
care to call, I think that would be fine," said Linda.
"Well, for the Lord's sake!" exclaimed the irate senior. "Can't
a fellow come and fight with you without being refereed by his
mother? Shall I bring Father too?"
"I only thought," said Linda quietly, "that you would like your
mother to see the home and environment of any girl whose
acquaintance you made, but the fight we have coming will in all
probability be such a pitched battle that when I go over the top,
you won't ever care to follow me and start another issue on the
other side. You're dying right now to ask why I wear my hair in
braids down my back instead of in cootie coops over my ears."
"I don't give a hang," said Donald ungallantly, "as to how you ;
wear your hair, but I am coming Saturday to fight, and I don't
think Mother will take any greater interest in the matter than to
know that I am going to do battle with a daughter of Doctor I
Strong."
"That is a very nice compliment to my daddy, thank you, said
Linda, turning away and proceeding in the direction of her own
classrooms. There was a brilliant sparkle in her eyes and she
sang in a muffled voice, yet distinctly enough to be heard:
"The shoes I wear are common-sense shoes,
And you may wear them if you choose."
"By gracious! She's no fool," he said to himself. In three
minutes' unpremeditated talk the "Junior Freak," as he mentally
denominated her, had managed to irritate him, to puncture his
pride, to entertain and amuse him.
"I wonder--" he said as he went his way; and all day he kept on
wondering, when he was not studying harder than ever before in
all his life.
That night Linda walked slowly along the road toward home. She
was not seeing the broad stretch of Lilac Valley, on every hand
green with spring, odorous with citrus and wild bloom, blue
walled with lacy lilacs veiling the mountain face on either side;
and she was not thinking of her plain, well-worn dress or her
common-sense shoes. What she was thinking was of every flaying,
scathing, solidly based argument she could produce the following
Saturday to spur Donald Whiting in some way to surpass Oka Sayye.
His chance remark that morning, as they stood near each other
waiting a few minutes in the hall, had ended in his asking to
come to see her, and she decided as she walked homeward that his
first visit in all probability would be his last, since she had
not time to spare for boys, when she had so many different
interests involved; but she did decide very finely in her own
mind that the would make that visit a memorable one for him.
In arriving at this decision her mind traveled a number of
devious roads. The thought that she had been criticized did not
annoy her as to the kind of criticism, but she did resent the
quality of truth about it. She was right in following the rules
her father had laid down for her health and physical well-being,
but was it right that she should wear shoes scuffed, resoled, and
even patched, when there was money enough for Eileen to have many
pairs of expensive laced boots, walking shoes, and fancy
slippers? She was sure she was right in wearing dresses suitable
for school, but was it right that she must wear them until they
were sunfaded, stained, and disreputable? Was it right that
Eileen should occupy their father and mother's suite, redecorated
and daintily furnished according to her own taste, to keep the
parts of the house that she cared to use decorated with flowers
and beautifully appointed, while Linda must lock herself in a
small stuffy bedroom room, dingy and none too comfortable, when
in deference to her pride she wished to work in secret until she
learned whether she could succeed.
Then she began thinking, and decided that the only available
place in the house for her use was the billiard room. She made
up her mind that she would demand the sole right to this big
attic room. She would sell the table and use the money to buy
herself a suitable worktable and a rug. She would demand that
Eileen produce enough money for better clothing for her, and then
she remembered what she had said to Donald Whiting about
conquering her horror for a motor car. Linda turned in at the
walk leading to her home, but she passed the front entrance and
followed around to the side. As she went she could hear voices
in the living room and she knew that Eileen was entertaining some
of her many friends; for Eileen was that peculiar creature known
as a social butterfly. Each day of her life friends came; or
Eileen went--mostly the latter, for Eileen had a knack of
management and she so managed her friends that, without their
realizing it, they entertained her many times while she
entertained them once. Linda went to the kitchen, Laid her books
and package of mail on the table, and, walking over to the stove,
she proceeded deliberately and heartily to kiss the cook.
"Katy, me darlin'," she said, "look upon your only child. Do you
notice a 'lean and hungry look' on her classic features?"
Katy turned adoring eyes to the young girl.
"It's growing so fast ye are, childie," she said. "It's only a
little while to dinner, and there's company tonight, so hadn't ye
better wait and not spoil your appetite with piecing?"
"Is there going to be anything 'jarvis'?" inquired Linda.
'"I'd say there is," said Katy. "John Gilman is here and two
friends of Eileen's. It's a near banquet, lassie."
"Then I'll wait," said Linda. "I want the keys to the garage."
Katy handed them to her and Linda went down the back walk beneath
an arch of tropical foliage, between blazing walls of brilliant
flower faces, unlocked the garage, and stood looking at her
father's runabout.
In the revolution that had taken place in their home after the
passing of their father and mother, Eileen had dominated the
situation and done as she pleased, with the exception of two
instances. Linda had shown both temper and determination at the
proposal to dismantle the library and dispose of the cars. She
had told Eileen that she might take the touring car and do as she
pleased with it. For her share she wanted her father's roadster,
and she meant to have it. She took the same firm stand
concerning the Library. With the rest of the house Eileen might
do as she would. The library was to remain absolutely untouched
and what it contained was Linda's. To this Eileen had agreed,
but so far Linda had been content merely to possess her property.
Lately, driven by the feeling that she must find a way in which
she could earn money, she had been secretly working on some plans
that she hoped might soon yield her small returns. As for the
roadster, she as well as Eileen had been horror-stricken when the
car containing their father and mother and their adjoining
neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, driven by Marian Thorne, the
playmate and companion from childhood of the Strong girls, had
become uncontrollable and plunged down the mountain in a disaster
that had left only Marian, protected by the steering gear, alive.
They had simply by mutual agreement begun using the street cars
when they wanted to reach the city.
Linda stood looking at the roadster, jacked up and tucked under a
heavy canvas tent that she and her father had used on their
hunting and fishing trips. After a long time she laid strong
hands on the canvas and dragged it to one side. She looked the
car over carefully and then, her face very white and her hands
trembling, she climbed into it and slowly and mechanically went
through the motions of starting it. For another intent period
she sat with her hands on the steering gear, staring straight
ahead, and then she said slowly: "Something has got to be done.
It's not going to be very agreeable, but I am going to do it.
Eileen: has had things all her own way long enough. I am
getting such a big girl I ought to have a few things in my life
as I want them. Something must be done."
Then Linda proceeded to do something. What she did was to lean
forward, rest her head upon the steering wheel and fight to keep
down deep, pitiful sobbing until her whole slender body twisted
in the effort.
She was yielding to a breaking up after four years of endurance,
for the greater part in silence. As the months of the past year
had rolled their deliberate way, Linda had begun to realize that
the course her elder sister had taken was wholly unfair to her,
and slowly a tumult of revolt was growing in her soul. Without a
doubt the culmination had resulted from her few minutes' talk
with Donald Whiting in the hall that morning. It had started
Linda to thinking deeply, and the more deeply she thought the
clearly she saw the situation. Linda was a loyal soul and her
heart was honest. She was quite willing that Eileen should :
exercise her rights as head of the family, that she should take
the precedence to which she was entitled by her four years'
seniority, that she should spend the money which accrued monthly
from their father's estate as she saw fit, up to a certain point.
That point was where things ceased to be fair or to be just. If
there had been money to do no more for Eileen than had been done
for Linda, it would not have been in Linda's heart to utter a
complaint. She could have worn scuffed shoes and old dresses,
and gone her way with her proud young head held very high and a
jest on her lips; but when her mind really fastened on the
problem and she began to reason, she could not feel that Eileen
was just to her or that she was fair in her administration of the
money which should have been divided more nearly equally between
them, after the household expenses had been paid. Once rebellion
burned in her heart the flames leaped rapidly, and Linda began to
remember a thousand small things that she had scarcely noted at
the time of their occurrence.
She was leaning on the steering wheel, tired with nerve strain,
when she heard Katy calling her, and realized that she was needed
in the kitchen. As a matter of economy Eileen, after her
parents' passing, had dismissed the housemaid, and when there
were guests before whom she wished to make a nice appearance
Linda had been impressed either to wait on the table or to help
in the kitchen in order that Katy might attend the dining room,
so Linda understood what was wanted when Katy called her. She
ran her fingers over the steering wheel, worn bright by the touch
of her father's and her own hands, and with the buoyancy of
youth, found comfort. Once more she mechanically went through
the motions of starting the car, then she stepped down, closed
the door, and stood an instant thinking.
"You're four years behind the times," she said slowly. "No doubt
there's a newer and a better model; I suspect the tires are
rotten, but the last day I drove you for Daddy you purred like a
kitten, and ran like a clock, and if you were cleaned and oiled
and put in proper shape, there's no reason in the world why I
should not drive you again, as I have driven you hundreds of
miles when Daddy was tired or when he wanted to teach me the
rules of good motoring, and the laws of the road. I can do it
all right. I have got to do it, but it will be some time before
I'll care to tackle the mountains."
Leaving the cover on the floor, she locked the door and returned
to the kitchen.
"All right, Katy, what is the programme?" she inquired as lightly
as she could.
Katy had been cook in the Strong family ever since they had
moved to Lilac Valley. She had obeyed Mrs. Strong and Eileen.
She had worshiped the Doctor and Linda It always had been patent
to her eyes that Mrs. Strong was extremely partial to Eileen, so
Katy had joined forces with the Doctor in surreptitiously doing
everything her warm Irish heart prompted to prevent Linda from
feeling neglected. Her quick eyes saw the traces of tears on
Linda's face, and she instantly knew that the trip the girl had
made to the garage was in some way connected with some belongings
of her father's, so she said: "I am serving tonight but I want
you to keep things smoking hot and to have them dished up ready
for me so that everything will go smoothly."
"What would happen," inquired Linda, "if everything did NOT go
smoothly? Katy, do you think the roof would blow straight up if
I had MY way about something, just for a change?"
"No, I think the roof would stay right where it belongs," said
Katy with a chuckle, "but I do think its staying there would not
be because Miss Eileen wanted it to."
"Well," said Linda deliberately, "we won't waste any time on
thinking We are going to have some positive knowledge on the
subject pretty immediately. I don't feel equal to starting any
domestic santana today, but the forces are gathering and the blow
is coming soon. To that I have firmly made up my mind."
"It's not the least mite I'm blaming you, honey," said Katy.
"Ye've got to be such a big girl that it's only fair things in
this house should go a good deal different."
"Is Marian to be here?" asked Linda as she stood beside the stove
peering into pans and kettles.
"Miss Eileen didn't say," replied Katy.
Linda's eyes reddened suddenly. She slammed down a lid with
vicious emphasis.
"That is another deal Eileen's engineered," she said, "that is
just about as wrong as anything possibly can be. What makes me
the maddest about it is that John Gilman will let Eileen take him
by the nose and lead him around like a ringed calf. Where is his
common sense? Where is his perception? Where is his honor?"
"Now wait, dearie," said Katy soothingly, "wait. John Gilman is
a mighty fine man. Ye know how your father loved him and trusted
him and gave him charge of all his business affairs. Ye mustn't
go so far as to be insinuating that he is lacking in honor."
"No," said Linda, "that was not fair. I don't in the least know
that he ever ASKED Marian to marry him; but I do know that as
long as he was a struggling, threadbare young lawyer Marian was
welcome to him, and they had grand times together. The minute he
won the big Bailey suit and came into public notice and his
practice increased until he was independent, that minute Eileen
began to take notice, and it looks to me now as if she very
nearly had him."
"And so far as I can see," said Katy, "Miss Marian is taking it
without a struggle. She is not lifting a finger or making a move
to win him back."
"Of course she isn't!" said Linda indignantly. "If she thought
he preferred some other girl to her, she would merely say: 'If
John has discovered that he likes Eileen the better, why, that is
all right; but there wouldn't be anything to prevent seeing
Eileen take John from hurting like the deuce. Did you ever lose
a man you loved, Katy?"
"That I did not!" said Katy emphatically. "We didn't do any four
or five years' philanderin' to see if a man 'could make good'
when I was a youngster. When a girl and her laddie stood up to
each other and looked each other straight in the eye and had the
great understanding, there weren't no question of whether he
could do for her what her father and mither had been doing, nor
of how much he had to earn before they would be able to begin
life together. They just caught hands and hot-footed it to the
praste and told him to read the banns the next Sunday, and when
the law allowed they was man and wife and taking what life had
for them the way it came, and together. All this philanderin'
that young folks do nowadays is just pure nonsense, and waste of
time."
"Sure!" laughed Linda. "When my brave comes along with his
blanket I'll just step under, and then if anybody tries to take
my man I'll have the right to go on the warpath and have a
scalping party that would be some satisfaction to the soul."
Then they served the dinner, and when the guests had left the
dining room, Katy closed the doors, and brought on the delicacies
she had hidden for Linda and patted and cajoled her while she ate
like any healthy, hungry young creature.
CHAPTER II. Cotyledon of Multiflores Canyon
"'Ave, atque vale!' Cotyledon!"
Linda slid down the side of the canyon with the deftness of the
expert. At the first available crevice she thrust in her Alpine
stick, and bracing herself, gained a footing. Then she turned
and by use of her fingers and toes worked her way back to the
plan, she had passed. She was familiar with many members of she
family, but such a fine specimen she seldom had found and she
could not recall having seen it in all of her botanies. Opposite
the plant she worked out a footing, drove her stick deep at the
base of a rock to brace herself, and from the knapsack on her
back took a sketchbook and pencil and began rapidly copying the
thick fleshy leaves of the flattened rosette, sitting securely at
the edge of a rock. She worked swiftly and with breathless
interest. When she had finished the flower she began sketching
in the moss-covered face of the boulder against which it grew,
and other bits of vegetation near.
"I think, Coty," she said, "it is very probable that I can come a
few simoleons with you. You are becoming better looking ever
minute."
For a touch of color she margined one side of her drawing with a
little spray of Pentstemon whose bright tubular flower the canyon
knew as "hummingbird's dinner horn." That gave, her the idea of
introducing a touch of living interest, so bearing down upon the
flowers from the upper right-hand corner of her drawing she
deftly sketched in a ruby-throated hummingbird, and across the
bottom of the sheet the lace of a few leaves of fern. Then she
returned the drawing and pencil to her knapsack, and making sure
of her footing, worked her way forward. With her long slender
fingers she began teasing the plant loose from the rock and the
surrounding soil. The roots penetrated deeper than she had
supposed and in her interest she forgot her precarious footing
and pulled hard. The plant gave way unexpectedly, and losing her
balance, Linda plunged down the side of the canyon catching
wildly at shrubs and bushes and bruising herself severely on
stones, finally landing in a sitting posture on the road that
traversed the canyon.
She was not seriously hurt, but she did not present a picturesque
figure as she sprawled in the road, her booted feet thrust
straight before her, one of her long black braids caught on a
bush at her back, her blouse pulled above her breeches, the
contents of her knapsack decorating the canyon side and the road
around her; but high in one hand, without break or blemish, she
triumphantly held aloft the rare Cotyledon. She shrugged her
shoulders, wiggled her toes, and moved her arms to assure herself
that no bones were broken; then she glanced at her drawings and
the fruits of her day's collecting scattered on the roadside
around her. She was in the act of rising when a motor car
containing two young men shot around a curve of the canyon,
swerved to avoid running over her, and stopped as abruptly as
possible.
"It's a girl!" cried the driver, and both men sprang to the road
and hurried to Linda's assistance. Her dark cheeks were red with
mortification, but she managed to recover her feet and tuck in
her blouse before they reached her
"We heard you coming down," said the elder of the young men, "and
we thought you might be a bear. Are you sure you're not hurt?"
Linda stood before them, a lithe slender figure, vivid with youth
and vitality.
"I am able to stand," she said, "so of course I haven't broken
any bones. I think I am fairly well battered, but you will
please to observe that there isn't a scratch on Cotyledon, and I
brought her down--at least I think it's she--from the edge of
that boulder away up there. Isn't she a beauty? Only notice the
delicate frosty 'bloom' on her leaves!"
"I should prefer," said the younger of the men, to know whether
you have any broken bones."
"I'm sure I am all right," answered Linda. "I have falling down
mountains reduced to an exact science. I'll bet you couldn't
slide that far and bring down Coty without a scratch.' "Well,
which is the more precious," said the young man. "Yourself or
the specimen?"
"Why, the specimen!" answered Linda in impatience. "California
is full of girls; but this is the finest Cotyledon of this family
I have ever seen. Don't mistake this for any common stonecrop.
It looks to me like an Echeveria. I know what I mean to do with
the picture I have made of her, and I know exactly where she is
going to grow from this day on."
"Is there any way we can help you?" inquired the elder of the
two men.
For the first time Linda glanced at him, and her impression was
that he was decidedly attractive.
"No, thank you!" she answered briskly. "I am going to climb back
up to the boulder and collect the belongings I spilled on the
way down. Then I am going to carry Coty to the car line in a
kind of triumphal march, because she is the rarest find that I
have ever made. I hope you have no dark designs on Coty,
because this is 'what the owner had to do to redeem her.'"
Linda indicated her trail down the canyon side, brushed soil and
twigs from her trousers, turned her straight young back,
carefully set down her specimen, and by the aid of her recovered
stick began expertly making her way up the canyon side. "Here,
let me do that," offered the younger man. "You rest until I
collect your belongings." Linda glanced back over her shoulder.
"Thanks," she said. "I have a mental inventory of all the
pencils and knives and trowels I must find. You might overlook
the most important part of my paraphernalia; and really I am not
damaged. I'm merely hurt. Good-bye!"
Linda started back up the side of the canyon, leaving the young
men to enter their car and drive away. For a minute both of them
stood watching her.
"What will girls be wearing and doing next?" asked the elder of
the two as he started his car.
"What would you have a girl wear when she is occupied with
coasting down canyons?" said his friend. "And as for what she is
doing, it's probable that every high-school girl in Los Angeles
has a botanical collection to make before she graduates."
"I see!" said the man driving. "She is only a high-school kid, ,
but did you notice that she is going to make an extremely
attractive young woman?"
"Yes, I noticed just that; I noticed it very particularly,"
answered the younger man. "And I noticed also that she either
doesn't know it, or doesn't give a flip."
Linda collected her belongings, straightened her hair and
clothing, and, with her knapsack in place, and leaning rather on
heavily on her walking stick, made her way down the road to the
abutment of a small rustic bridge where she stopped to rest. The
stream at her feet was noisy and icy cold. It rushed through
narrow defiles in the rock, beat itself to foam against the faces
a of the big stones, fell over jutting cliffs, spread in
whispering pools, wound back and forth across the road at its
will, singing every foot of its downward way and watering beds of
crisp, cool miners' lettuce, great ferns, and heliotrope,
climbing clematis, soil and blue-eyed grass. All along its
length grew willows, and in a few places white-bodied sycamores.
Everywhere over the walls red above it that vegetation could find
a footing grew mosses, vines, flowers, and shrubs. On the
shadiest side homed most of the ferns and the Cotyledon. In the
sun, larkspur, lupin, and monkey flower; everywhere wild rose,
holly, mahogany, gooseberry, and bayoneted yucca all
intermingling in a curtain of variegated greens, brocaded with
flower arabesques of vivid red, white, yellow, and blue. Canyon
wrens and vireos sang as they nested. The air was clear, cool,
and salty from the near-by sea. Myriad leaf shadows danced on
the black roadbed, level as a barn floor, and across it trailed
the wavering image of hawk and vulture, gull and white sea
swallow. Linda studied the canyon with intent eyes, but bruised
flesh pleaded, so reluctantly she arose, shouldered her
belongings, and slowly followed the road out to the car line that
passed through Lilac Valley, still carefully bearing in triumph
the precious Cotyledon. An hour later she entered the driveway
of her home. She stopped to set her plant carefully in the wild
garden she and her father had worked all her life at collecting,
then followed the back porch and kitchen route.
"Whatever have ye been doing to yourself, honey?" cried Katy.
"I came a cropper down Multiflores Canyon where it is so steep
that it leans the other way. I pretty well pulverized myself for
a pulverulent, Katy, which is a poor joke."
"Now ain't that just my luck!" wailed Katy, snatching a cake
cutter and beginning hurriedly to stamp out little cakes from the
dough before her.
"Well, I don't understand in exactly what way," said Linda,
absently rubbing her elbows and her knees. "Seems to me it's my
promontories that have been knocked off, not yours, Katy."
"Yes, and ain't it just like ye," said Katy, "to be coming in
late, and all banged up when Miss Eileen has got sudden notice
that there is going to be company again and I have an especial
dinner to serve, and never in the world can I manage if ye don't
help me !"
"Why, who is coming now?" asked Linda, seating herself on the
nearest chair and beginning to unfasten her boots slowly.
"Well, first of all, there is Mr. Gilman, of course."
"'Of course,'" conceded Linda. "If he tried to get past our
house, Eileen is perfectly capable of setting it on fire to stop
him. She's got him 'vamped' properly."
"Oh I don't know that ye should say just that," said Katy "Eileen
is a mighty pretty girl, and she is SOME manager."
"You can stake your hilarious life she is," said Linda, viciously
kicking a boot to the center of the kitchen. "She can manage to
go downtown for lunch and be invited out to dinner thirteen times
a week, and leave us at home to eat bread and milk, bread heavily
stressed. She can manage to get every cent of the income from
the property in her fingers, and a great big girl like me has to
go to high school looking so tacky that even the boys are
beginning to comment on it. Manage, I'll say she can manage, not
to mention managing to snake John Gilman right out of Marian's
fingers. I doubt if Marian fully realizes yet that she's lost
her man; and I happen to know that she just plain loved John!"
The second boot landed beside the first, then Linda picked them
both up and started toward the back hall.
"Honey, are ye too bad hurt to help me any?" asked Katy, as she
passed her.
"Of course not," said Linda. "Give me a few minutes to take a
bath and step into my clothes and then I'll be on the job."
With a black scowl on her face, Linda climbed the dingy back
stairway in her stocking-feet. At the head of the stairs she
paused one minute, glanced at the gloom of her end of the house,
then she turned and walked to the front of the hall where there
were potted ferns, dainty white curtains, and bright rugs. The
door of the guest room stood open and she could see that it was
filled with fresh flowers and ready for occupancy. The door of
her sister's room was slightly ajar and she pushed it open and
stood looking inside. In her state of disarray she made a
shocking contrast to the flowerlike figure busy before a dressing
table. Linda was dark, narrow, rawboned, overgrown in height,
and forthright of disposition. Eileen was a tiny woman,
delicately moulded, exquisitely colored, and one of the most
perfectly successful tendrils from the original clinging vine in
her intercourse with men, and with such women as would tolerate
the clinging-vine idea in the present forthright days. With a
strand of softly curled hair in one hand and a fancy pin in the
other, Eileen turned a disapproving look upon her sister.
"What's the great idea?" demanded Linda shortly.
"Oh, it's perfectly splendid," answered Eileen. "John Gilman's
best friend is motoring around here looking for a location to
build a home. He is an author and young and good looking and not
married, and he thinks he would like to settle somewhere near Los
Angeles. Of course John would love to have him in Lilac Valley
because he hopes to build a home here some day for himself. His
name is Peter Morrison and John says that his articles and
stories have horse sense, logic, and humor, and he is making a
lot of money."
"Then God help John Gilman, if he thinks now that he is in love
with you," said Linda dryly.
Eileen arched her eyebrows, thinned to a hair line, and her lips
drew together in disapproval.
"What I can't understand," she said, "is how you can be so
unspeakably vulgar, Linda."
Linda laughed sharply.
"And this Peter Morrison and John are our guests for dinner?"
"Yes," said Eileen. "I am going to show them this valley inside
and out. I'm so glad it's spring. We're at our very best. It
would be perfectly wonderful to have an author for a neighbor,
and he must be going to build a real house, because he has his
architect with him; and John says that while he is young, he has
done several awfully good houses. He has seen a couple of them
in in San Francisco."
Linda shrugged her shoulders.
"Up the flue goes Marian's chance of drawing the plans for John
Gilman's house," she said. "I have heard him say a dozen times
he would not build a house unless Marian made the plans."
Eileen deftly placed the strand of hair and set the jewelled pin
with precision.
"Just possibly things have changed slightly," she suggested.
"Yes," said Linda, "I observe that they have. Marian has sold
the home she adored. She is leaving friends she loved and
trusted, and who were particularly bound to her by a common grief
without realizing exactly how it is happening. She certainly
must know that you have taken her lover, and I have not a doubt
but that is the reason she has discovered she can no longer work
at home, that she must sell her property and spend the money
cooped up in a city, to study her profession further."
"Linda," said Eileen, her face pale with anger, "you are
positively insufferable. Will you leave my room and close the
door after you?"
"Well, Katy has just informed me," said Linda, "that this dinner
party doesn't come off without my valued assistance, and before I
agree to assist, I'll know ONE thing. Are you proposing to
entertain these three men yourself, or have you asked Marian?"
Eileen indicated an open note lying on her dressing table.
"I did not know they were coming until an hour ago," she said.
"_I_ barely had time to fill the vases and dust, and then I ran
up to dress so that there would be someone presentable when they
arrive."
"All right then, we'll agree that this is a surprise party, but
if John Gilman has told you so much about them, you must have
been expecting them, and in a measure prepared for them at any
time. Haven't you talked it over with Marian, and told her that
you would want her when they came?"
Eileen was extremely busy with another wave of hair. She turned
her back and her voice was not quite steady as she answered.
"Ever since Marian got this 'going to the city to study' idea in
her head I have scarcely seen her. She had an awful job to empty
the house, and pack such things as she wants to keep, and she is
working overtime on a very special plan that she thinks maybe
she'll submit in a prize competition offered by a big firm of San
Francisco architects, so I have scarcely seen her for six weeks."
"And you never once went over to help her with her work, or to
encourage her or to comfort her? You can't think Marian can
leave this valley and not be almost heartbroken," said Linda.
"You just make me almost wonder at you. When you think of the
kind of friends that Marian Thorne's father and mother, and our
father and mother were, and how we children were reared together,
and the good times we have had in these two houses--and then the
awful day when the car went over the cliff, and how Marian clung
to us and tried to comfort us, when her own health was broken--
and Marian's the same Marian she has always been, only nicer
every day--how you can sit there and say you have scarcely seen
her in six of the hardest weeks of her life, certainly surprises
me. I'll tell you this: I told Katy I would help her, but I
won't do it if you don't go over and make Marian come tonight."
Eileen turned to her sister and looked at her keenly. Linda's
brow was sullen, and her jaw set.
"A bed would look mighty good to me and I will go and get into
mine this minute if you don't say you will go and ask her, in
such a way that she comes," she threatened.
Eileen hesitated a second and then said: "All right, since you
make such a point of it I will ask her."
"Very well," said Linda. "Then I'll help Katy the very best I
can."
CHAPTER III. The House of Dreams
In less than an hour, Linda was in the kitchen, dressed in an old
green skirt and an orange blouse. Katy pinned one of her aprons
on the girl and told her that her first job was to set the table.
"And Miss Eileen has given most particular orders that I use the
very best of everything. Lay the table for four, and you are to
be extremely careful in serving not to spill the soup."
Linda stood very quietly for a second, her heavy black brows
drawn together in deep thought.
"When did Eileen issue these instructions?" she inquired.
"Not five minutes ago," said Katy. "She just left me kitchen and
I'll say I never saw her lookin' such a perfect picture. That
new dress of hers is the most becoming one she has ever had."
Almost unconsciously, Linda's hand reached to the front of her
well-worn blouse, and she glanced downward at her skirt and
shoes.
"Um-hm," she said meditatively, "another new dress for Eileen,
which means that I will get nothing until next month's allowance
comes in, if I do then. The table set for four, which,
interpreted, signifies that she has asked Marian in such a way
that Marian won't come. And the caution as to care with the soup
means that I am to serve my father's table like a paid waitress.
Katy, I have run for over three years on Eileen's schedule, but
this past year I am beginning to use my brains and I am reaching
the place of self-assertion. That programme won't do, Katy.
It's got to be completely revised. You just watch me and see how
I follow those instructions."
Then Linda marched out of the kitchen door and started across the
lawn in the direction of a big brown house dimly outlined through
widely spreading branches of ancient live oaks, palm, and bamboo
thickets. She entered the house without knocking and in the hall
uttered a low penetrating whistle. It was instantly answered
from upstairs. Linda began climbing, and met Marian at the top.
"Why, Marian," she cried, "I had no idea you were so far along.
The house is actually empty."
"Practically everything went yesterday," answered Marian. "Those
things of Father's and Mother's and my own that I wish to keep I
have put in storage, and the remainder went to James's Auction
Rooms. The house is sold, and I am leaving in the morning."
"Then that explains," questioned Linda, "why you refused Eileen's
invitation to dinner tonight?"
"On the contrary," answered Marian, "an invitation to dinner
tonight would be particularly and peculiarly acceptable to me,
since the kitchen is barren as the remainder of the house, and I
was intending to slip over when your room was lighted to ask if I
might spend the night with you."
Linda suddenly gathered her friend in her arms and held her
tight.
"Well, thank heaven that you felt sufficiently sure of me to come
to me when you needed me. Of course you shall spend the night
with me; and I must have been mistaken in thinking Eileen had
been here. She probably will come any minute. There are guests
for the night. John is bringing that writer friend of his. Of
course you know about him. It's Peter Morrison."
Marian nodded her head. "Of course! John has always talked of
him. He had some extremely clever articles in The Post lately."
"Well, he is one," said Linda, "and an architect who is touring
with him is two; they are looking for a location to build a house
for the writer. You can see that it would be a particularly
attractive feather in our cap if he would endorse our valley
sufficiently to home in it. So Eileen has invited them to sample
our brand of entertainment, and in the morning no doubt she will
be delighted to accompany them and show them all the beautiful
spots not yet preempted."
"Oh, heavens," cried Marian, "I'm glad I never showed her my
spot!"
"Well, if you are particular about wanting a certain place I
sincerely hope you did not," said Linda.
"I am sure I never did," answered Marian. "I so love one spot
that I have been most secretive about it. I am certain I never
went further than to say there was a place on which I would love
to build for myself the house of my dreams. I have just about
finished getting that home on paper, and I truly have high hopes
that I may stand at least a fair chance of winning with it the
prize Nicholson and Snow are offering. That is one of the
reasons why I am hurrying on my way to San Francisco much sooner
than I had expected to go. I haven't a suitable dinner dress
because my trunks have gone, but among such old friends it won't
matter. I have one fussy blouse in my bag, and I'll be over as
soon as I can see to closing up the house and dressing."
Linda hurried home, and going to the dining room, she laid the
table for six in a deft and artistic manner. She filled a basket
with beautiful flowers of her own growing for a centerpiece, and
carefully followed Eileen's instruction to use the best of
everything. When she had finished she went to the kitchen.
"Katy," she said, "take a look at my handiwork."
"It's just lovely," said Katy heartily.
"I quite agree with you," answered Linda, "and now in pursuance
of a recently arrived at decision, I have resigned, vamoosed,
quit, dead stopped being waitress for Eileen. I was seventeen my
last birthday. Hereafter when there are guests I sit at my
father's table, and you will have to do the best you can with
serving, Katy."
"And it's just exactly right ye are," said Katy. "I'll do my
best, and if that's not good enough, Miss Eileen knows what she
can do."
"Now listen to you," laughed Linda. "Katy, you couldn't be
driven to leave me, by anything on this earth that Eileen could
do; you know you couldn't."
Katy chuckled quietly. "Sure, I wouldn't be leaving ye, lambie,"
she said. "We'll get everything ready, and I can serve I six as
nicely as anyone. But you're not forgetting that Miss Eileen
said most explicit to lay the table for FOUR?'
"I am not forgetting," said Linda. "For Eileen's sake I am I
sorry to say that her ship is on the shoals. She is not going to
have clear sailing with little sister Linda any longer. This is
the year of woman's rights, you know, Katy, and I am beginning to
realize that my rights have been badly infringed upon for lo
these many years. If Eileen chooses to make a scene before
guests, that is strictly up to Eileen. Now what is it you want
me to do?"
Katy directed and Linda worked swiftly. Soon they heard a motor
stop, and laughing voices told them that the guests had arrived.
"Now I wonder," said Linda, "whether Marian is here yet."
At that minute Marian appeared at the kitchen door.
"Linda," she said breathlessly, "I am feeling queer about this.
Eileen hasn't been over."
"Oh, that's all right," said Linda casually. "The folks have
come, and she was only waiting to make them a bit at home before
she ran after you."
Marian hesitated.
"She was not allowing me much time to dress."
"That's 'cause she knew you did not need it," retorted Linda.
"The more you fuss up, the less handsome you are, and you never
owned anything in your life so becoming as that old red blouse.
So farewell, Katy, we're due to burst into high society tonight.
We're going to help Eileen vamp a lawyer, and an author, and an
architect, one apiece. Which do you prefer, Marian?"
"I'll take the architect," said Marian. "We should have
something in common since I am going to be a great architect
myself one of these days."
"Why, that is too bad," said Linda. "I'll have to rearrange the
table if you insist, because I took him, and left you the author,
and it was for love of you I did it. I truly wanted him myself,
all the time."
They stopped in the dining room and Marian praised Linda's work
in laying the table; and then, together they entered the living
room.
At the moment of their entrance, Eileen was talking animatedly
about the beauties of the valley as a location for a happy home.
When she saw the two girls she paused, the color swiftly faded
from her face, and Linda, who was watching to see what would
happen, noticed the effort she made at self-control, but she was
very sure that their guests did not.
It never occurred to Linda that anyone would consider good looks
in connection with her overgrown, rawboned frame and lean face,
but she was accustomed to seeing people admire Marian, for Marian
was a perfectly modeled woman with peach bloom cheeks, deep, dark
eyes, her face framed in a waving mass of hair whose whiteness
dated from the day that the brakes of her car failed and she
plunged down the mountain with her father beside her, and her
mother and Doctor and Mrs. Strong in the back seat. Ten days
afterward Marian's head of beautiful dark hair was muslin white.
Now it framed a face of youth and beauty with peculiar pathos.
"Striking" was perhaps the one adjective which would best
describe her.
John Gilman came hastily to greet them. Linda, after a swift
glance at Eileen, turned astonished eyes on their guests. For
one second she looked at the elder of them, then at the younger.
There was no recognition in her eyes, and there was a decided
negative in a swift movement of her head. Both men understood
that she did not wish them to mention that they ever had seen her
previously. For an instant there was a strained situation.
Eileen was white with anger. John Gilman was looking straight at
Marian, and in his soul he must have wondered if he had been wise
in neglecting her for Eileen. Peter Morrison and his architect,
Henry Anderson, had two things to think about. One was the
stunning beauty of Marian Thorne as she paused in the doorway,
the light misting her white hair and deepening the tints of her
red waist The other was why the young girl facing them had
forbidden them to reveal that two hours before they had seen her
in the canyon. Katy, the efficient life-saver of the Strong
family, announced dinner, and Linda drew back the curtains and
led the way to the dining room, saying when they had arrived: "I
didn't have time in my hour's notice to make elaborate place
cards as I should have liked to do, so these little pen sketches
will have to serve."
To cover his embarrassment and to satisfy his legal mind, John
Gilman turned to Linda, asking: "Why 'an hour'? I told Eileen a
week ago I was expecting the boys today."
"But that does not prove that Eileen mentioned it to me,"
answered Linda quietly; "so you must find your places from the
cards I could prepare in a hurry."
This same preparation of cards at the round table placed Eileen
between the architect and the author, Marian between the author
and John Gilman, and Linda between Gilman and the architect,
which added one more tiny gale to the storm of fury that was
raging in the breast of white-faced Eileen. The situation was so
strained that without fully understanding it, Marian, who was
several years older than either of the Strong sisters, knew that
although she was tired to the point of exhaustion she should
muster what reserve force she could to the end of making the
dinner party particularly attractive, because she was deeply
interested i n drawing to the valley every suitable home seeker
it was possible to locate there. It was the unwritten law of the
valley that whenever a home seeker passed through, every soul who
belonged exerted the strongest influence to prove that the stars
hung lower and shone bigger and in bluer heavens than anywhere
else on earth; that nowhere could be found air to equal the
energizing salt breezes from the sea, snow chilled, perfumed with
almond and orange; that the sun shone brighter more days in the
year, and the soil produced a greater variety of vegetables and
fruits than any other spot of the same size on God's wonderful
footstool. This could be done with unanimity and enthusiasm by
every resident of Lilac Valley for the very simple reason that it
was the truth. The valley stood with its steep sides raying blue
from myriad wild lilacs; olives and oranges sloped down to the
flat floor, where cultivated ranches and gardens were so screened
by eucalyptus and pepper trees, palm and live oak, myriads of
roses of every color and variety, and gaudy plants gathered there
from the entire girth of the tropical world, that to the traveler
on the highway trees and flowers predominated. The greatest
treasure of the valley was the enthusiastic stream of icy
mountain water that wandered through the near-by canyon and
followed the length of the valley on its singing, chuckling way
to the ocean. All the residents of Lilac Valley had to do to
entrance strangers with the location was to show any one of a
dozen vantage points, and let visitors test for themselves the
quality of the sunshine and air, and study the picture made by
the broad stretch of intensively cultivated valley, walled on
either side by mountains whose highest peaks were often
cloud-draped and for ever shifting their delicate pastel shades
from gray to blue, from lavender to purple, from tawny yellow to
sepia, under the play of the sun and clouds.
They had not been seated three minutes before Linda realized from
her knowledge of Eileen that the shock had been too great, if
such a thing might be said of so resourceful a creature as
Eileen. Evidently she was going to sulk in the hope that this
would prove that any party was a failure at which she did not
exert herself to be gracious. It had not been in Linda's heart
to do more than sit quietly in the place belonging by right to
her, but when she realized what was going to happen, she sent
Marian one swift appealing glance, and then desperately plunged
into conversation to cover Eileen's defection.
"I have been told," she said, addressing the author, "that you
are looking for a home in California. Is this true, or is it
merely that every good Californian hopes this will happen when
any distinguished Easterner comes our way?"
"I can scarcely answer you," said Peter Morrison, "because my
ideas on the subject are still slightly nebulous, but I am only
too willing to see them become concrete."
"You have struck exactly the right place," said Linda. "We have
concrete by the wagon load in this valley and we are perfectly
willing to donate the amount required to materialize your ideas.
Do you dream of a whole ranch or only a nest?"
"Well, the fact is," answered Peter Morrison with a most
attractive drawl in his slow speech, "the fact is the dimensions
of my dream must fit my purse. Ever since I finished college I
have been in newspaper work and I have lived in an apartment in
New York except while I was abroad. When I came back my paper
sent me to San Francisco and from there I motored down to see for
myself if the wonderful things that are written about Los Angeles
County are true."
"That is not much of a compliment to us," said Linda slowly.
"How do you think we would dare write them if they were not
true?"
This caused such a laugh that everyone felt much easier. Marian
turned her dark eyes toward Peter Morrison.
"Linda and I are busy people," she said. "We waste little time
in indirections, so I hope it's not out of the way for me to ask
straightforwardly if you are truly in earnest, about wanting a
home in Lilac Valley?"
"Then I'll have to answer you," said Peter, "that I have an
attractive part of the 'makin's' and I am in deadly earnest about
wanting a home somewhere. I am sick in my soul of narrow
apartments and wheels and the rush and roar of the city. There
was a time when I ate and drank it. It was the very breath of
life to me. I charged on Broadway like a caterpillar tank
charging in battle; but it is very remarkable how quickly one
changes in this world. I have had some success in my work, and
the higher I go, the better work I feel I can do in a quiet place
and among less enervating surroundings. John and I were in
college together, roommates, and no doubt he has told you that we
graduated with the same class. He has found his location here
and I would particularly enjoy having a home near him. They tell
me there are well-trained servants to look after a house and care
for a bachelor, so I truly feel that if I can find a location I
would like, and if Henry can plan me a house, and I can stretch
my purse to cover the investment, that there is a very large
possibility that somewhere within twenty miles of Los Angeles I
may find the home of my dreams."
"One would almost expect," said Marian, "that a writer would say
something more original. This valley is filled with people who
came here saying precisely what you have said; and the lure of
the land won them and here they are, shameless boosters of
California."
"Why shameless?" inquired Henry Anderson.
"Because California so verifies the wildest statement that can be
made concerning her that one may go the limit of imagination
without shame," laughed Marian. "I try in all my dealings to
stick to the straight and narrow path."
"Oh, kid, don't stick to the straight and narrow," broke in
Linda, "there's no scenery."
Eileen laid down her fork and stared in white-lipped amazement at
the two girls, but she was utterly incapable of forgetting
herself and her neatly arranged plans to have the three
cultivated and attractive young men all to herself for the
evening. She realized too, from the satisfaction betrayed in the
glances these men were exchanging among each other, the ease with
which they sat, and the gusto with which they ate the food Katy
was deftly serving them, that something was happening which never
had happened at the Strong table since she had presided as its
head, her sole endeavor having been to flatter her guests or to
extract flattery for herself from them.
"That is what makes this valley so adorable," said Marian when at
last she could make herself heard. "It is neither straight nor
narrow. The wing of a white sea swallow never swept a lovelier
curve on the breast of the ocean than the line of this valley.
My mother was the dearest little woman, and she used to say that
this valley was outlined by a gracious gesture from the hand of
God in the dawn of Creation."
Peter Morrison deliberately turned in his chair, his eyes intent
on Marian's earnest face.
"You almost make me want to say, in the language of an old hymn I
used to hear my mother sing, 'Here will I set up my rest.' With
such a name as Lilac Valley and with such a thought in the heart
concerning it, I scarcely feel that there is any use in looking
further. How about it, Henry? Doesn't it sound conclusive to
you?"
"It certainly does," answered Henry Anderson, "and from what I
could see as we drove in, it looks as well as it sounds."
Peter Morrison turned to his friend.
"Gilman," he said, "you're a lawyer; you should know the things
I'd like to. Are there desirable homesites still to be found in
the valley, and does the inflation of land at the present minute
put it out of my reach?"
"Well, that is on a par with the average question asked a
lawyer," answered Gilman, "but part of it I can answer definitely
and at once. I think every acre of land suitable for garden or
field cultivation is taken. I doubt if there is much of the
orchard land higher up remaining and what there is would command
a rather stiff price; but if you would be content with some small
plateau at the base of a mountain where you could set any sort of
a house and have--say two or three acres, mostly of sage and
boulders and greasewood and yucca around it "
"Why in this world are you talking about stones and sage and
greasewood?" cried Linda. "Next thing they'll be asking about
mountain lions and rattlesnakes."
"I beg your pardon," said Gilman, "I fear none of us has
remembered to present Miss Linda as a coming naturalist. She got
her start from her father, who was one of the greatest nerve
specialists the world ever has known. She knows every inch of
the mountains, the canyons and the desert. She always says that
she cut her teeth on a chunk of adobe, while her father hunted
the nests of trap-door spiders out in Sunland. What should 1
have said when describing a suitable homesite for Peter, Linda?"
"You should have assumed that immediately, Peter,"--Linda lifted
her eyes to Morrison's face with a sparkle of gay challenge, and
by way of apology interjected--"I am only a kid, you know, so I
may call John's friend Peter--you should have assumed that sage
and greasewood would simply have vanished from any home location
chosen by Peter, leaving it all lacy blue with lilac, and misty
white with lemonade bush, and lovely gold with monkey flower, and
purple with lupin, and painted blood red with broad strokes of
Indian paint brush, and beautifully lighted with feathery flames
from Our Lord's Candles, and perfumy as altar incense with wild
almond."
"Oh, my soul," said Peter Morrison. "Good people, I have
located. I have come to stay. I would like three acres but I
could exist with two; an acre would seem an estate to me, and my
ideas of a house, Henry, are shriveling. I did have a dream of
something that must have been precious near a home. There might
have been an evanescent hint of flitting draperies and
inexperienced feet in it, but for the sake of living and working
in such a location as Miss Linda describes, I would gladly cut my
residence to a workroom and a sleeping room and kitchen."
"Won't do," said Linda. "A house is not a house in California
without a furnace and a bathroom. We are cold as blue blazes
here when the sun goes down and the salty fog creeps up from the
sea, and the icy mist rolls down from the mountains to chill our
bones; and when it has not rained for six months at a stretch,
your own private swimming pool is a comfort. This to add
verisimilitude to what everyone else in Lilac Valley is going to
tell you."
"I hadn't thought I would need a fire," said Peter, "and I was
depending on the ocean for my bathtub. I am particularly fond of
a salt rub."
So far, Eileen had not deigned to enter the conversation. It was
all so human, so far from her ideas of entertaining that the
disapproval on her lips was not sufficiently veiled to be
invisible, and
John Gilman, glancing in her direction, realized that he was
having the best time he had ever had in the Strong household
since the passing of his friends, Doctor and Mrs. Strong, vaguely
wondered why. And it occurred to him that Linda and Marian were
dominating the party. He said the most irritating thing possible
in the circumstances: "I am afraid you are not feeling well this
evening, Eileen."
Eileen laughed shortly.
"The one perfect thing about me," she said with closely cut
precision, "is my health. I haven't the faintest notion what it
means to be ill. I am merely waiting for the conversation to
take a I turn where I can join in it intelligently."
"Why, bless the child!" exclaimed Linda. "Can't you talk
intelligently about a suitable location for a home? On what
subject is a woman supposed to be intelligent if she is not at
her best on the theme of home. If you really are not interested
you had better begin to polish up, because it appeals to me that
the world goes just so far in one direction, and then it whirls
to the right-about and goes equally as far in the opposite
direction. If Daddy were living I think he would say we have
reached the limit with apartment house homes minus fireplaces,
with restaurant dining minus a blessing, with jazz music minus
melody, with jazz dancing minus grace, with national progress
minus cradles."
"Linda!" cried Eileen indignantly.
"Good gracious!" cried Linda. "Do I get the shillalah for that?
Weren't all of us rocked in cradles? I think that the pendulum
has swung far and it is time to swing back to where one man and
one woman choose any little spot on God's footstool, build a nest
and plan their lives in accord with personal desire and
inclination instead of aping their neighbors."
"Bravo!" cried Henry Anderson. "Miss Linda, if you see any
suitable spot, and you think I would serve for a bug-catcher,
won't you please stake the location?"
"Well, I don't know about that," said Linda. "Would it be the
old case of 'I furnish the bread and you furnish the water'?"
"No," said Peter Morrison, "it would not. Henry is doing mighty
well. I guarantee that he would furnish a cow that would produce
real cream."
"How joyous!" said Linda. "I feel quite competent to manage the
bread question. We'll call that settled then. When I next cast
an appraising eye over my beloved valley, I shan't select the
choicest spot in it for Peter Morrison to write a book in; and I
want to warn you people when you go hunting to keep a mile away
from Marian's plot. She has had her location staked from
childhood and has worked on her dream house until she has it all
ready to put the ice in the chest and scratch the match for the
living room fire-logs. The one thing she won't ever tell is
where her location is, but wherever it is, Peter Morrison, don't
you dare take it."
"I wouldn't for the world," said Peter Morrison gravely. "If
Miss Thorne will tell me even on which side of the valley her
location lies, I will agree to stay on the other side."
"Well there is one thing you can depend upon," said the
irrepressible Linda before Marian had time to speak. "It is sure
to be on the sunny side. Every living soul in California is
looking for a place in the sun."
"Then I will make a note of it," said Peter Morrison. "But isn't
there enough sun in all this lovely valley that I may have a
place in it too?"
"You go straight ahead and select any location you like," said
Marian. "I give you the freedom of the valley. There's not one
chance in ten thousand that you would find or see anything
attractive about the one secluded spot I have always hoped I
might some day own. '
"This is not fooling, then?" asked Peter Morrison. "You truly
have a place selected where you would like to live?"
"She truly has the spot selected and she truly has the house on
paper and it truly is a house of dreams," said Linda. "I dream
about it myself. When she builds it and lives in it awhile and
finds out all the things that are wrong with it, then I am going
to build one like it, only I shall eliminate all the mistakes she
has made."
"I have often wondered," said Henry Anderson, "if such a thing
ever happened as that people built a house and lived in it, say
ten years, and did not find one single thing about it that they
would change if they had it to build over again. I never have
heard of such a case. Have any of you?"
"I am sure no one has," said John Gilman meditatively, "and it's
a queer thing. I can't see why people don't plan a house the way
they want it before they build."
Marian turned to him--the same Marian he had fallen in love with
when they were children.
"Mightn't it be," she asked, "that it is due to changing
conditions caused by the rapid development of science and
invention? If one had built the most perfect house possible five
years ago and learned today that infinitely superior lighting and
heating l and living facilities could be installed at much less
expense and far greater convenience, don't you think that one
would want to change? Isn't life a series of changes? Mustn't
one be changing constantly to keep abreast of one's day and age?"
"Why, surely," answered Gilman, "and no doubt therein lies at
least part of the answer to Anderson's question."
"And then," added Marian, "things happen in families. Sometimes
more babies than they expect come to newly married people and
they require more room."
"My goodness, yes!" broke in Linda. "Just look at Sylvia
Townsend--twins to begin with."
"Linda!" breathed Eileen, aghast.
"So glad you like my name, dear," murmured Linda sweetly.
"And then," continued Marian, "changes come to other people as
they have to me. I can't say that I had any fault to find with
either the comforts or the conveniences of Hawthorne House until
Daddy and Mother were swept from it at one cruel sweep; and after
that it was nothing to me but a haunted house, and I don't feel
that I can be blamed for wanting to leave it. I will be glad to
know that there are people living in it who won't see a big
strong figure meditatively smoking before the fireplace and a
gray dove of a woman sitting on the arm of his chair. I will be
glad, if Fate is kind to me and people like my houses, to come
back to the valley when I can afford to and build myself a home
that has no past--a place, in fact, where I can furnish my own
ghost, and if I meet myself on the stairs then I won't be shocked
by me.
"I don't think there is a soul in the valley who blames you for
selling your home and going, Marian," said Linda soberly. "I
think it would be foolish if you did not."
The return to the living room brought no change. Eileen pouted
while Linda and Marian thoroughly enjoyed themselves and gave the
guests a most entertaining evening. So disgruntled was Eileen,
when the young men had gone, that she immediately went to her
room, leaving Linda and Marian to close the house and make their
own arrangements for the night. Whereupon Linda deliberately led
Marian to the carefully dusted and flower-garnished guest room
and installed her with every comfort and convenience that the
house afforded. Then bringing her brushes from her own room, she
and Marian made themselves comfortable, visiting far into the
night.
"I wonder," said Linda. "if Peter Morrison will go to a real
estate man in the morning and look over the locations remaining
in Lilac Valley."
"Yes, I think he will," said Marian conclusively.
"It seems to me," said Linda, "that we did a whole lot of talking
about homes tonight; which reminds me, Marian, in packing have
you put in your plans? Have you got your last draft with you?"
"No," answered Marian, "it's in one of the cases. I haven't
anything but two or three pencil sketches from which I drew the
final plans as I now think I'll submit them for the contest.
Wouldn't it be a tall feather in my cap, Linda, if by any chance
l I should win that prize?"
"It would be more than a feather," said Linda. "It would be a
whole cap, and a coat to wear with it, and a dress to match the
coat, and slippers to match the dress, and so forth just like
'The House That Jack Built.' Have you those sketches, Marian?"
Opening her case, Marian slid from underneath the garments folded
in it, several sheets on which were roughly penciled sketches of
the exterior of a house--on the reverse, the upstairs and
downstairs floor plans; and sitting down, she explained these to
Linda. Then she left them lying on a table, waiting to be
returned to her case before she replaced her clothes in the
morning. Both girls were fast asleep when a mischievous wind
slipped down the valley, and lightly lifting the top sheet,
carried it through the window, across the garden, and dropped it
at the foot of a honey-dripping loquat.
Because they had talked until late in the night of Marian's plans
and prospects in the city, of Peter Morrison's proposed residence
in the valley, of how lonely Linda would be without Marian, of
everything concerning their lives except the change in Eileen and
John Gilman, the two girls slept until late in the morning, so
that there were but a few minutes remaining in which Marian might
dress, have a hasty breakfast and make her train. In helping
her, it fell to Linda to pack Marian's case. She put the
drawings she found on the table in the bottom, the clothing and
brushes on top of them, and closing the case, carried it herself
until she delivered it into the porter's hands as Marian boarded
her train.
CHAPTER IV. Linda Starts a Revolution
The last glimpse Marian Thorne had of Linda was as she stood
alone, waving her hand, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, her
final word cheery and encouraging. Marian smiled and waved in
return until the train bore her away. Then she sat down wearily
and stared unseeingly from a window. Life did such very dreadful
things to people. Her girlhood had been so happy. Then came the
day of the Black Shadow, but in her blackest hour she had not
felt alone. She had supposed she was leaning on John Gilman as
securely as she had leaned on her father. She had learned, with
the loss of her father, that one cannot be sure of anything in
this world least of all of human life. Yet in her darkest days
she had depended on John Gilman. She had every reason to believe
that it was for her that he struggled daily to gain a footing in
his chosen profession. When success came, when there was no
reason that Marian could see why they might not have begun life
together, there had come a subtle change in John, and that change
had developed so rapidly that in a few weeks' time, she was
forced to admit that the companionship and loving attentions that
once had been all hers were now all Eileen's.
She sat in the train, steadily carrying her mile after mile
farther from her home, and tried to think what had happened and
how and why it had happened. She could not feel that she had
been wrong in her estimate of John Gilman. Her valuation of him
had
been taught her by her father and mother and by Doctor and Mrs.
Strong and by John Gilman himself. Dating from the time that
Doctor Strong had purchased the property and built a home in
Lilac Valley beside Hawthorne House, Marian had admired Eileen
and had loved her. She was several years older than the
beautiful girl she had grown up beside. Age had not mattered;
Eileen's beauty had not mattered. Marian was good looking
herself.
She always had known that Eileen had imposed upon her and was
selfish with her, but Eileen's impositions were so skillfully
maneuvered, her selfishness was so adorably taken for granted
that Marian in retrospection felt that perhaps she was
responsible for at least a small part of it. She never had been
able to see the inner workings of Eileen's heart. She was not
capable of understanding that when John Gilman was poor and
struggling Eileen had ignored him. It had not occurred to Marian
that when the success for which he struggled began to come
generously, Eileen would begin to covet the man she had
previously disdained. She had always striven to find friends
among people of wealth and distinction. How was Marian to know
that when John began to achieve wealth and distinction, Eileen
would covet him also?
Marian could not know that Eileen had studied her harder than she
ever studied any book, that she had deliberately set herself to
make the most of every defect or idiosyncrasy in Marian, at the
same time offering herself as a charming substitute. Marian was
prepared to be the mental, the spiritual, and the physical mate
of a man.
Eileen was not prepared to be in truth and honor any of these.
She was prepared to make any emergency of life subservient to her
own selfish desires. She was prepared to use any man with whom
she came in contact for the furtherance of any whim that at the
hour possessed her. What she wanted was unbridled personal
liberty, unlimited financial resources.
Marian, almost numbed with physical fatigue and weeks of mental
strain, came repeatedly against the dead wall of ignorance when
she tried to fathom the change that had taken place between
herself and John Gilman and between herself and Eileen. Daniel
Thorne was an older man than Doctor Strong. He had accumulated
more property. Marian had sufficient means at her command to
make it unnecessary for her to acquire a profession or work for
her living, but she had always been interested in and loved to
plan houses and help her friends with buildings they were
erecting. When the silence and the loneliness of her empty home
enveloped her, she had begun, at first as a distraction, to work
on the drawings for a home that an architect had made for one of
her neighbors. She had been able to suggest so many comforts and
conveniences, and so to revise these plans that, at first in a
desultory way, later in real earnest, she had begun to draw plans
for houses. Then, being of methodical habit and mathematical
mind, she began scaling up the plans and figuring on the cost of
building, and so she had worked until she felt that she was
evolving homes that could be built for the same amount of money
and lived in with more comfort and convenience than the homes
that many of her friends were having planned for them by
architects of the city.
To one spot in the valley she had gone from childhood as a secret
place in which to dream and study. She had loved that retreat
until it had become a living passion with her. The more John
Gilman neglected her, the more she concentrated upon her plans,
and when the hour came in which she realized what she had lost
and what Eileen had won, she reached the decision to sell her
home, go to the city, and study until she knew whether she really
could succeed at her chosen profession.
Then she would come back to the valley, buy the spot she coveted,
build the house of which she dreamed, and in it she would spend
the remainder of her life making homes for the women who knew how
to hold the love of men. When she reached the city she had
decided that if one could not have the best in life, one must be
content with the next best, and for her the next best would be
homes for other people, since she might not materialize the home
she had dreamed for John Gilman and herself. She had not wanted
to leave the valley. She had not wanted to lose John Gilman.
She had not wanted to part with the home she had been reared in.
Yet all of these things seemed to have been forced upon her. All
Marian knew to do was to square her shoulders, take a deep
breath, put regrets behind her, and move steadily toward the best
future she could devise for herself.
She carried letters of introduction to the San Francisco
architects, Nicholson and Snow, who had offered a prize for the
best house that could be built in a reasonable time for fifteen
thousand dollars. She meant to offer her plans in this
competition. Through friends she had secured a comfortable place
in which to live and work. She need undergo no hardships in
searching for a home, in clothing herself, in paying for
instruction in the course in architecture she meant to pursue.
Concerning Linda she could not resist a feeling of exultation.
Linda was one of the friends in Lilac Valley about whom Marian
could think wholeheartedly and lovingly. Sometimes she had been
on the point of making a suggestion to Linda, and then she had
contented herself with waiting in the thought that very soon
there must come to the girl a proper sense of her position and
her rights. The experience of the previous night taught Marian
that Linda had arrived. She would no longer be the compliant
little sister who would run Eileen's errands, wait upon her
guests and wear disreputable clothing. When Linda reached a
point where she was capable of the performance of the previous
night, Marian knew that she would proceed to live up to her blue
china in every ramification of life. She did not know exactly
how Linda would follow up the assertion of her rights that she
had made, but she did know that in some way she would follow it
up, because Linda was a very close reproduction of her father.
She had been almost constantly with him during his life, very
much alone since his death. She was a busy young person. From
Marian's windows she had watched the business of carrying on the
wild-flower garden that Linda and her father had begun. What the
occupation was that kept the light burning in Linda's room far
into the night Marian did not know. For a long time she had
supposed that her studies were difficult for her, and when she
had asked Linda if it were not possible for her to prepare her
lessons without so many hours of midnight study she had caught
the stare of frank amazement with which the girl regarded her and
in that surprised, almost grieved look she had realized that very
probably a daughter of Alexander Strong, who resembled him as
Linda resembled him, would not be compelled to overwork to master
the prescribed course of any city high school. What Linda was
doing during those midnight hours Marian did not know, but she
did know that she was not wrestling with mathematics and
languages--at least not all of the time. So Marian knowing
Linda's gift with a pencil, had come to the conclusion that she
was drawing pictures; but circumstantial evidence was all she had
as a basis for her conviction. Linda went her way silently and
alone. She was acquainted with everyone living in Lilac Valley,
frank and friendly with all of them; aside from Marian she had no
intimate friend. Not another girl in the valley cared to follow
Linda's pursuits or to cultivate the acquaintance of the
breeched, booted girl, constantly devoting herself to outdoor
study with her father during his lifetime, afterward alone.
For an instant after Marian had boarded her train Linda stood
looking at it, her heart so heavy that it pained acutely. She
had not said one word to make Marian feel that she did not want
her to go. Not once had she put forward the argument that
Marian's going would leave her to depend entirely for human
sympathy upon the cook, and her guardian, also administrator of
the Strong estate, John Gilman. So long as he was Marian's
friend Linda had admired John Gilman. She had gone to him for
some measure of the companionship she had missed in losing her
father. Since Gilman had allowed himself to be captivated by
Eileen, Linda had harbored a feeling concerning him almost of
contempt. Linda was so familiar with every move that Eileen
made, so thoroughly understood that there was a motive back of
her every action, that she could not see why John Gilman, having
known her from childhood, should not understand her also.
She had decided that the time had come when she would force
Eileen to give her an allowance, however small, for her own
personal expenses, that she must in some way manage to be clothed
so that she was not a matter of comment even among the boys of
her school, and she could see no reason why the absolute personal
liberty she always had enjoyed so long as she disappeared when
Eileen did not want her and appeared when she did, should not
extend to her own convenience as well as Eileen's.
Life was a busy affair for Linda. She had not time to watch
Marian's train from sight. She must hurry to the nearest street
car and make all possible haste or she would be late for her
classes. Throughout the day she worked with the deepest
concentration, but she could not keep down the knowledge that
Eileen would have things to say, possibly things to do, when they
met that evening, for Eileen was capable of disconcerting
hysteria. Previously Linda had remained stubbornly silent during
any tirade in which Eileen chose to indulge. She had allowed
herself to be nagged into doing many things that she despised,
because she would not assert herself against apparent injustice.
But since she had come fully to realize the results of Eileen's
course of action for Marian and for herself, she was deliberately
arriving at the conclusion that hereafter she would speak when
she had a defense, and she would make it her business to let the
sun shine on any dark spot that she discovered in Eileen.
Linda knew that if John Gilman were well acquainted with Eileen,
he could not come any nearer to loving her than she did. Such an
idea as loving Eileen never had entered Linda's thoughts. To
Linda, Eileen was not lovable. That she should be expected to
love her because they had the same parents and lived in the same
home seemed absurd. She was slightly disappointed, on reaching
home, to find that Eileen was not there.
"Will the lady of the house dine with us this evening? she asked
as she stood eating an apple in the kitchen.
"She didn't say," answered Katy. "Have ye had it out about last
night yet?"
"No," answered Linda. "That is why I was asking about her. I
want to clear the atmosphere before I make my new start in life."
"Now, don't ye be going too far, lambie," cautioned Katy "Ye
young things make such an awful serious business of life these
days. In your scramble to wring artificial joy out of it you
miss all the natural joy the good God provided ye."
"It seems to me, Katy," said Linda slowly, "that you should put
that statement the other way round. It seems that life makes a
mighty serious business for us young things, and it seems to me
that if we don't get the right start and have a proper foundation
life Is going to be spoiled for us. One life is all I've got to
live in this world, and I would like it to be the interesting and
the beautiful kind of life that Father lived."
Linda dropped to a chair.
"Katy," she said, leaning forward and looking intently into the
earnest face of the woman before her, "Katy, I have been thinking
an awful lot lately. There is a question you could answer for me
if you wanted to."
"Well, I don't see any raison," said Katy, "why I shouldn't
answer ye any question ye'd be asking me."
Linda's eyes narrowed as they did habitually in deep thought She
was looking past Katy down the sunlit spaces of the wild garden
that was her dearest possession, and then her eyes strayed higher
to where the blue walls that shut in Lilac Valley ranged their
peaks against the sky. "Katy," she said, scarcely above her
breath, "was Mother like Eileen?"
Katy stiffened. Her red face paled slightly. She turned her
back and slowly slid into the oven the pie she was carrying.
She closed the door with more force than was necessary and then
turned and deliberately studied Linda from the top of her
shining black head to the tip of her shoe.
"Some," she said tersely.
"Yes, I know 'some'," said Linda, "but you know I was too young
to pay much attention, and Daddy managed always to make me so
happy that I never realized until he was gone that he not only
had been my father but my mother as well. You know what I mean,
Katy."
"Yes," said Katy deliberately, "I know what ye mean, lambie, and
I'll tell ye the truth as far as I know it. She managed your
father, she pampered him, but she deceived him every day, just
about little things. She always made the household accounts
bigger than they were, and used the extra money for Miss Eileen
and herself--things like that. I'm thinkin' he never knew it.
I'm thinking he loved her deeply and trusted her complete. I
know what ye're getting at. She was not enough like Eileen to
make him unhappy with her. He might have been if he had known
all there was to know, but for his own sake I was not the one to
give her away, though she constantly made him think that I was
extravagant and wasteful in me work."Linda's eyes came back from
the mountains and met Katy's straightly.
"Katy," she said, "did you ever see sisters as different as
Eileen and I are?"
"No, I don't think I ever did," said Katy.
"It puzzles me," said Linda slowly. "The more I think about it,
the less I can understand why, if we are sisters, we would not
accidentally resemble each other a tiny bit in some way, and I
must say I can't see that we do physically or mentally."
"No," said Katy, "ye were just as different as ye are now when I
came to this house new and ye were both little things."
"And we are going to be as different and to keep on growing more
different every day of our lives, because red war breaks out the
minute Eileen comes home. I haven't a notion what she will say
to me for what I did last night and what I am going to do in the
future, but I have a definite idea as to what I am going to say
to her."
"Now, easy; ye go easy, lambie," cautioned Katy.
"I wouldn't regret it," said Linda, "if I took Eileen by the
shoulders and shook her till I shook the rouge off her cheek,
and the brilliantine off her hair, and a million mean little
subterfuges out of her soul. You know Eileen is lovely when she
is natural, and if she would be straight-off-the-bat square, I
would be proud to be her sister. As it is, I have my doubts,
even about this sister business."
"Why, Linda, child, ye are just plain crazy," said Katy. "What
kind of notions are you getting into your head?"
"I hear the front door," said Linda, "and I am going to march
straight to battle. She's going up the front stairs. I did mean
to short-cut up the back, but, come to think of it, I have served
my apprenticeship on the back stairs. I believe I'll ascend the
front myself. Good-bye, darlin', wish me luck."
Linda swung Katy around, hugged her tight, and dropped a kiss on
the top of her faithful head.
"Ye just stick right up for your rights," Katy advised her.
"Ye're a great big girl. 'Tain't going to be long till ye're
eighteen. But mind your old Katy about going too far. If ye
lose your temper and cat-spit, it won't get ye anywhere. The
fellow that keeps the coolest can always do the best headwork."
"I get you," said Linda, "and that is good advice for which I
thank you."
CHAPTER V. The Smoke of Battle
Then Linda walked down the hall, climbed the front stairs, and
presented herself at Eileen's door, there to receive one of the
severest shocks of her young life. Eileen had tossed her hat and
fur upon a couch, seated herself at her dressing table, and was
studying her hair in the effort to decide whether she could fluff
it up sufficiently to serve for the evening or whether she must
take it down and redress it. At Linda's step in the doorway she
turned a smiling face upon her and cried: "Hello, little sister,
come in and tell me the news."
Linda stopped as if dazed. The wonderment in which she looked at
Eileen was stamped all over her. A surprised braid of hair hung
over one of her shoulders. Her hands were surprised, and the
skirt of her dress, and her shoes flatly set on the floor.
"Well, I'll be darned!" she ejaculated, and then walked to where
she could face Eileen, and seated herself without making any
attempt to conceal her amazement.
"Linda," said Eileen sweetly, "you would stand far better chance
of being popular and making a host of friends if you would not be
so coarse. I am quite sure you never heard Mama or me use such
an expression."
For one long instant Linda was too amazed to speak. Then she
recovered herself.
"Look here, Eileen, you needn't try any 'perfect lady' business
on me," she said shortly. "Do you think I have forgotten the
extent of your vocabulary when the curling iron gets too hot or
you fail to receive an invitation to the Bachelors' Ball?"
Linda never had been capable of understanding Eileen. At that
minute she could not know that Eileen had been facing facts
through the long hours of the night and all through the day, and
that she had reached the decision that for the future her only
hope of working Linda to her will was to conciliate her, to
ignore the previous night, to try to put their relationship upon
the old basis by pretending that there never had been a break.
She laughed softly.
"On rare occasions, I grant it. Of course a little swear slips
out sometimes. What I am trying to point out is that you do too
much of it."
"How did you ever get the idea," said Linda, "that I wanted to be
popular and have hosts of friends? What would I do with them if
I had them?"
"Why, use them, my child, use them," answered Eileen promptly.
"Let's cut this," said Linda tersely. "I am not your child. I'm
getting to the place where I have serious doubt as to whether I
am your sister or not. If I am, it's not my fault, and the same
clay never made two objects quite so different. I came up here
to fight, and I'm going to see it through. I'm on the warpath,
so you may take your club and proceed to battle."
"What have we to fight about?" inquired Eileen.
"Every single thing that you have done that was unfair to me all
my life," said Linda. "Since all of it has been deliberate you
probably know more about the details than I do, so I'll just
content myself with telling you that for the future, last night
marked a change in the relations between us. I am going to be
eighteen before so very long, and I have ceased to be your maid
or your waitress or your dupe. You are not going to work me one
single time when I have got brains to see through your schemes
after this. Hereafter I take my place in my father's house and
at my father's table on an equality with you."
Eileen looked at Linda steadily, trying to see to the depths of
her soul. She saw enough to convince her that the young creature
in front of her was in earnest.
"Hm," she said, "have I been so busy that I have failed to notice
what a great girl you are getting?"
"Busy!" scoffed Linda. "Tell that to Katy. It's a kumquat!"
"Perhaps you are too big," continued Eileen, "to be asked to wait
on the table any more."
"I certainly am," retorted Linda, "and I am also too big to wear
such shoes or such a dress as I have on at the present min. ute.
I know all about the war and the inflation of prices and the
reduction in income, but I know also that if there is enough to
run the house, and dress you, and furnish you such a suite of
rooms as you're enjoying right now, there is enough to furnish me
suitable clothes, a comfortable bedroom and a place where I can
leave my work without putting away everything I am doing each
time I step from the room. I told you four years ago that you
might take the touring car and do what you pleased with it. I
have never asked what you did or what you got out of it, so I'll
thank you to observe equal silence about anything I choose to do
now with the runabout, which I reserved for myself. I told you
to take this suite, and this is the first time that I have ever
mentioned to you what you spent on it."
Linda waved an inclusive hand toward the fully equipped, dainty
dressing table, over rugs of pale blue, and beautifully decorated
walls, including the sleeping room and bath adjoining.
"So now I'll ask you to keep off while I do what I please about
the library and the billiard room. I'll try to get along without
much money in doing what I desire there, but I must have some new
clothes. I want money to buy me a pair of new shoes for school.
I want a pair of pumps suitable for evenings when there are
guests to dinner. I want a couple of attractive school dresses.
This old serge is getting too hot and too worn for common
decency. And I also want a couple of dresses something like you
are wearing, for afternoons and evenings."
Eileen stared aghast at Linda.
"Where," she inquired politely, "is the money for all this to
come from?"
"Eileen," said Linda in a low tense voice, "I have reached the
place where even the BOYS of the high school are twitting me
about how I am dressed, and that is the limit. I have stood it
for three years from the girls. I am an adept in pretending that
I don't see, and I don't hear. I have got to the point where I
am perfectly capable of walking into your wardrobe and taking out
enough of the clothes there and selling them at a second-hand
store to buy me what I require to dress me just plainly and
decently. So take warning. I don't know where you are going to
get the money, but you are going to get it. If you would welcome
a suggestion from me, come home only half the times you dine
yourself and your girl friends at tearooms and cafes in the city,
and you will save my share that way. I am going to give you a
chance to total your budget, and then I demand one half of the
income from Father's estate above household expenses; and if I
don't get it, on the day I am eighteen I shall go to John Gilman
and say to him what I have said to you, and I shall go to the
bank and demand that a division be made there, and that a
separate bank book be started for me."
Linda's amazement on entering the room had been worthy of note.
Eileen's at the present minute was beyond description.
Dumbfounded was a colorless word to describe her state of mind.
"You don't mean that," she gasped in a quivering voice when at
last she could speak.
"I can see, Eileen, that you are taken unawares," said Linda. "I
have had four long years to work up to this hour. Hasn't it even
dawned on you that this worm was ever going to turn? You know
exquisite moths and butterflies evolve in the canyons from very
unprepossessing and lowly living worms. You are spending your
life on the butterfly stunt. Have I been such a weak worm that
it hasn't ever occurred to you that I might want to try a plain,
everyday pair of wings sometime myself ?"
Eileen's face was an ugly red, her hands were shaking, her voice
was unnatural, but she controlled her temper.
"Of course," she said, "I have always known that the time would
come, after you finished school and were of a proper age, when
you would want to enter society."
"No, you never knew anything of the kind," said Linda bluntly,
"because I have not the slightest ambition to enter society
either now or then. All I am asking is to enter the high school
in a commonly decent, suitable dress; to enter our dining room as
a daughter; to enter a workroom decently equipped for my
convenience. You needn't be surprised if you hear some changes
going on in the billiard room and see some changes going on in
the library. And if I feel that I can muster the nerve to drive
the runabout, it's my car, it's up to me."
"Linda!" wailed Eileen, "how can you think of such a thing? You
wouldn't dare."
"Because I haven't dared till the present is no reason why I
should deprive myself of every single pleasure in life," said
Linda. "You spend your days doing exactly what you please;
driving that runabout for Father was my one soul-satisfying
diversion. Why shouldn't I do the thing I love most, if I can
muster the nerve?"
Linda arose, and walking over to a table, picked up a magazine
lying among some small packages that Eileen evidently had placed
there on entering her room.
"Are you subscribing to this?" she asked.
She turned in her hands and leafed through the pages of a most
attractive magazine, Everybody's Home. It was devoted to poetry,
good fiction, and everything concerning home life from beef to
biscuits, and from rugs to roses.
"I saw it on a newsstand," said Eileen. "I was at lunch with
some girls who had a copy and they were talking about some
articles by somebody named something--Meredith, I think it was
--Jane Meredith, maybe she's a Californian, and she is advocating
the queer idea that we go back to nature by trying modern cooking
on the food the aborigines ate. If we find it good then she
recommends that we specialize on the growing of these native
vegetables for home use and for export--as a new industry."
"I see," said Linda. "Out-Burbanking Burbank, as it were."
"No, not that," said Eileen. "She is not proposing to evolve new
forms. She is proposing to show us how to make delicious dishes
for luncheon or dinner from wild things now going to waste. What
the girls said was so interesting that I thought I'd get a copy
and if I see anything good I'll turn it over to Katy."
"And where's Katy going to get the wild vegetables?" asked Linda
sceptically.
"Why you might have some of them in your wild garden, or you
could easily find enough to try--all the prowling the canyons you
do ought to result in something."
"So it should," said Linda. "I quite agree with you. Did I
understand you to say that I should be ready to go to the bank
with you to arrange about my income next week?"
Again the color deepened in Eileen's face, again she made a
visible effort at self-control.
"Oh, Linda," she said, "what is the use of being so hard? You
will make them think at the bank that I have not treated you
fairly."
"_I_?"said Linda, "_I_ will make them think? Don't you think it
is YOU who will make them think? Will you kindly answer my
question?"
"If I show you the books," said Eileen, "if I divide what is left
after the bills are paid so that you say yourself that it is
fair, what more can you ask?"
Linda hesitated.
"What I ought to do is exactly what I have said I would do," she
said tersely, "but if you are going to put it on that basis I
have no desire to hurt you or humiliate you in public. If you do
that, I can't see that I have any reason to complain, so we'll
call it a bargain and we'll say no more about it until the first
of the month, unless the spirit moves you, after taking a good
square look at me, to produce some shoes and a school dress
instanter."
"I'll see what I can do," answered Eileen.
"All right then," said Linda. "See you at dinner."
She went to her own room, slipped off her school dress, brushed
her hair, and put on the skirt and blouse she had worn the
previous evening, these being the only extra clothing she
possessed. As she straightened her hair she looked at herself
intently.
"My, aren't you coming on!" she said to the figure in the glass.
"Dressing for dinner! First thing you know you'll be a perfect
lady."
CHAPTER VI. Jane Meredith
When Eileen came down to dinner that evening Linda understood at
a glance that an effort was to be made to efface thoroughly from
the mind of John Gilman all memory of the Eileen of the previous
evening. She had decided on redressing her hair, while she wore
one of her most becoming and attractive gowns. To Linda and Katy
during the dinner she was simply charming. Having said what she
wanted to say and received the assurance she desired, Linda
accepted her advances cordially and displayed such charming
proclivities herself that Eileen began covertly to watch her, and
as she watched there slowly grew in her brain the conviction that
something had happened to Linda. At once she began studying
deeply in an effort to learn what it might be. There were three
paramount things in Eileen's cosmos that could happen to a girl:
She could have lovely clothing. Linda did not have it. She
could have money and influential friends. Since Marian's going
Linda had practically no friend; she was merely acquainted with
almost everyone living in Lilac Valley. She could have a lover.
Linda had none. But stay! Eileen's thought halted at the
suggestion. Maybe she had! She had been left completely, to her
own devices when she was not wanted about the house. She had
been mingling with hundreds of boys and girls in high school.
She might have met some man repeatedly on the street cars, going
to and from school. In school she might have attracted the son
of some wealthy and influential family; which was the only kind
of son Eileen chose to consider in connection with Linda.
Through Eileen's brain ran bits of the conversation of the
previous evening. She recalled that the men she had intended
should spend the evening waiting on her and paying her pretty
compliments had spent it eating like hungry men, laughing and
jesting with Linda and Marian, giving every evidence of a
satisfaction with their entertainment that never had been evinced
with the best brand of attractions she had to offer.
Eileen was willing to concede that Marian Thorne had been a
beautiful girl, and she had known, previous to the disaster, that
it was quite as likely that any man might admire Marian's
flashing dark beauty as her blonde loveliness. Between them then
it would have been merely a question of taste on the part of the
man. Since Marian's dark head had turned ashen, Eileen had
simply eliminated her at one sweep. That white hair would brand
Marian anywhere as an old woman. Very likely no man ever would
want to marry her. Eileen was sure she would not want to if she
were a man. No wonder John Gilman had ceased to be attracted by
a girl's face with a grandmother setting.
As for Linda, Eileen never had considered her at all except as a
convenience to serve her own purposes. Last night she had
learned that Linda had a brain, that she had wit, that she could
say things to which men of the world listened with interest. She
began to watch Linda. She appraised with deepest envy the dark
hair curling naturally on her temples. She wondered how hair
that curled naturally could be so thick and heavy, and she
thought what a crown of glory would adorn Linda's head when the
day came to coil those long dark braids around it and fasten them
with flashing pins. She drew some satisfaction from the
sunburned face and lean figure before her, but it was not
satisfaction of soul-sustaining quality. There was beginning to
be something disquieting about Linda. A roundness was creeping
over her lean frame; a glow was beginning to color her lips and
cheek bones; a dewy look could be surprised in her dark eyes
occasionally. She had the effect of a creature with something
yeasty bottled inside it that was beginning to ferment and might
effervesce at any minute. Eileen had been so surprised the
previous evening and again before dinner, that she made up her
mind that hereafter one might expect almost anything from Linda.
She would no longer follow a suggestion unless the suggestion
accorded with her sense of right and justice. It was barely
possible that it might be required to please her inclinations.
Eileen's mind worked with unbelievable swiftness. She tore at
her subject like a vulture tearing at a feast, and like a vulture
she reached the vitals swiftly. She prefaced her question with a
dry laugh. Then she leaned forward and asked softly: "Linda,
dear, why haven't you told me?"
Linda's eyes were so clear and honest as they met Eileen's that
she almost hesitated.
"A little more explicit, please," said the girl quietly.
"WHO IS HE?" asked Eileen abruptly.
"Oh, I haven't narrowed to an individual," said Linda largely
"You have noticed a flock of boys following me from school and
hanging around the front door? I have such hosts to choose from
that it's going to take a particularly splendid knight on a snowwhite
charger--I think 'charger' is the proper word--to capture
my young affections."
Eileen was satisfied. There wasn't any he. She might for a
short time yet cut Linda's finances to the extreme limit.
Whenever a man appeared on the horizon she would be forced to
make a division at least approaching equality.
Linda followed Eileen to the living room and sat down with a book
until John Gilman arrived. She had a desire to study him for a
few minutes. She was going to write Marian a letter that night.
She wanted to know if she could honestly tell her that Gilman
appeared lonely and seemed to miss her. Katy had no chance to
answer the bell when it rang. Eileen was in the hall. Linda
could not tell what was happening from the murmur of voices.
Presently John and Eileen entered the room, and as Linda greeted
him she did have the impression that he appeared unusually
thoughtful and worried. She sat for half an hour, taking slight
part in the conversation. Then she excused herself and went to
her room, and as she went she knew that she could not honestly
write Marian what she had hoped, for in thirty minutes by the
clock Eileen's blandishments had worked, and John Gilman was
looking at her as if she were the most exquisite and desirable
creature in existence.
Slowly Linda climbed the stairs and entered her room. She slid
the bolt of her door behind her, turned on the lights, unlocked a
drawer, and taking from it a heap of materials she scattered them
over a small table, and picking up her pencil, she sat gazing at
the sheet before her for some time. Then slowly she began
writing:
It appeals to me that, far as modern civilization has gone in
culinary efforts, we have not nearly reached the limits available
to us as I pointed out last month. We consider ourselves capable
of preparing and producing elaborate banquets, yet at no time are
we approaching anything even to compare in lavishness and
delicacy with the days of Lucullus. We are not feasting on baked
swans, peacock tongues and drinking our pearls. I am not
recommending that we should revive the indulgence of such lavish
and useless expenditure, but I would suggest that if we tire with
the sameness of our culinary efforts, we at least try some of the
new dishes described in this department, established for the sole
purpose of their introduction. In so doing we accomplish a
multiple purpose. We enlarge the resources of the southwest. We
tease stale appetites with a new tang. We offer the world
something different, yet native to us. We use modern methods on
Indian material and the results are most surprising. In trying
these dishes I would remind you that few of us cared for oysters,
olives, celery--almost any fruit or vegetable one could mention
on first trial. Try several times and be sure you prepare dishes
exactly right before condemning them as either fad or fancy.
These are very real, nourishing and delicious foods that are
being offered you. Here is a salad that would have intrigued the
palate of Lucullus, himself. If you do not believe me, try it.
The vegetable is slightly known by a few native mountaineers and
ranchers. Botanists carried it abroad where under the name of
winter-purslane it is used in France and England for greens or
salad, while remaining practically unknown at home. Boiled and
seasoned as spinach it makes equally good greens. But it is in
salad that it stands pre-eminent.
Go to any canyon--I shall not reveal the name of my particular
canyon--and locate a bed of miner's lettuce (Montia perfoliata).
Growing in rank beds beside a cold, clean stream, you will find
these pulpy, exquisitely shaped, pungent round leaves from the
center of which lifts a tiny head of misty white lace, sending up
a palate-teasing, spicy perfume. The crisp, pinkish stems snap
in the fingers. Be sure that you wash the leaves carefully so
that no lurking germs cling to them. Fill your salad bowl with
the crisp leaves, from which the flowerhead has been plucked.
For dressing, dice a teacup of the most delicious bacon you can
obtain and fry it to a crisp brown together with a small sliced
onion. Add to the fat two tablespoons of sugar, half a teaspoon
of mustard; salt will scarcely be necessary the bacon will
furnish that. Blend the fat, sugar, and mustard, and pour in a
measure of the best apple vinegar, diluted to taste. Bring this
mixture to the boiling point, and when it has cooled slightly
pour it over the lettuce leaves, lightly turning with a silver
fork. Garnish the edge of the dish with a deep border of the
fresh leaves bearing their lace of white bloom intact, around the
edge of the bowl, and sprinkle on top the sifted yolks of two
hard-boiled eggs, heaping the diced whites in the center.
Linda paused and read. this over carefully.
"That is all right," she said. "I couldn't make that much
better."
She made a few corrections here and there, and picking up a
colored pencil, she deftly sketched in a head piece of delicate
sprays of miners' lettuce tipped at differing angles, fringy
white with bloom. Below she printed: "A delicious Indian salad.
The second of a series of new dishes to be offered made from
materials used by the Indians. Compounded and tested in her own
diet kitchen by the author."
Swiftly she sketched a tail piece representing a table top upon
which sat a tempting-looking big salad bowl filled with fresh
green leaves, rimmed with a row of delicate white flowers, from
which you could almost scent a teasing delicate fragrance
arising; and beneath, in a clear, firm hand, she stroked in the
name, Jane Meredith. She went over her work carefully, then laid
it flat on a piece of cardboard, shoved it into an envelope,
directed it to the editor of Everybody's Home, laid it inside her
geometry, and wrote her letter to Marian before going to bed.
In the morning on her way to the street car she gaily waved to a
passing automobile going down Lilac Valley, in which sat John
Gilman and Peter Morrison and his architect, and as they were
driving in the direction from which she had come, Linda very
rightly surmised that they were going to pick up Eileen and make
a tour of the valley, looking for available building locations;
and she wondered why Eileen had not told her that they were
coming. Linda had been right about the destination of the car.
It turned in at the Strong driveway and stopped at the door.
John Gilman went to ring the bell and learn if Eileen were ready.
Peter followed him. Henry Anderson stepped from the car and
wandered over the lawn, looking at the astonishing array of
bushes, vines, flowers, and trees.
From one to another he went, fingering the waxy leaves, studying
the brilliant flower faces. Finally turning a corner and
crossing the wild garden, to which he paid slight attention, he
started down the other side of the house. Here an almost
overpowering odor greeted his nostrils, and he went over to a
large tree covered with rough, dark green, almost brownish,
lance-shaped leaves, each branch terminating in a heavy spray of
yellowish-green flowers, whose odor was of cloying sweetness.
The bees were buzzing over it. It was not a tree with which he
was familiar, and stepping back, he looked at it carefully. Then
at its base, wind-driven into a crevice between the roots, his
attention was attracted to a crumpled sheet of paper, upon which
he could see lines that would have attracted the attention of any
architect. He went forward instantly, picked up the sheet, and
straightening it out he stood looking at it.
"Holy smoke!" he breathed softly. "What a find!"
He looked at the reverse of the sheet, his face becoming more
intent every minute. When he heard Peter Morrison's voice
calling him he hastily thrust the paper into his coat pocket; but
he had gone only a few steps when he stopped, glanced keenly over
the house and lawn, turned his back, and taking the sheet from
his pocket, he smoothed it out, folded it carefully, and put it
in an inside pocket. Then he joined the party.
At once they set out to examine the available locations that yet
remained in Lilac Valley. Nature provided them a wonderful day
of snappy sunshine and heady sea air. Spring favored them with
lilac walls at their bluest, broken here and there with the rosemisted
white mahogany. The violet nightshade was beginning to
add deeper color to the hills in the sunniest wild spots. The
panicles of mahonia bloom were showing their gold color. Wild
flowers were lifting leaves of feather and lace everywhere, and
most agreeable on the cool morning air was a faint breath of
California sage. Up one side of the valley, weaving in and out,
up and down, over the foothills they worked their way. They
stopped for dinner at one of the beautiful big hotels,
practically filled with Eastern tourists. Eileen never had known
a prouder moment than when she took her place at the head of the
table and presided over the dinner which was served to three most
attractive specimens of physical manhood, each of whom was
unusually well endowed with brain, all flattering her with the
most devoted attention. This triumph she achieved in a dining
room seating hundreds of people, its mirror-lined walls
reflecting her exquisite image from many angles, to the click of
silver, and the running accompaniment of many voices. What she
had expected to accomplish in her own dining room had come to her
before a large audience, in which, she had no doubt, there were
many envious women. Eileen rayed loveliness like a Mariposa
lily, and purred in utter contentment like a deftly stroked
kitten.
When they parted in the evening Peter Morrison had memoranda of
three locations that he wished to consider. That he might not
seem to be unduly influenced or to be giving the remainder of Los
Angeles County its just due, he proposed to motor around for a
week before reaching an ultimate decision, but in his heart he
already had decided that somewhere near Los Angeles he would
build his home, and as yet he had seen nothing nearly so
attractive as Lilac Valley.
CHAPTER VII. Trying Yucca
On her way to school that morning Linda stopped at the post
office and pasted the required amount of stamps upon the package
that she was mailing to New York. She hurried from her last
class that afternoon to the city directory to find the street and
number of James Brothers, figuring that the firm with whom Marian
dealt would be the proper people for her to consult. She had no
difficulty in finding the place for which she was searching, and
she was rather agreeably impressed with the men to whom she
talked. She made arrangements with their buyer to call at her
home in Lilac Valley at nine o'clock the following Saturday
morning to appraise the articles with which she wished to part.
Then she went to one of the leading book stores of the city and
made inquiries which guided her to a reliable second-hand book
dealer, and she arranged to be ready to receive his
representative at ten o'clock on Saturday.
Reaching home she took a note book and pencil, and studied the
billiard room and the library, making a list of the furniture
which she did not actually need. After that she began on the
library shelves, listing such medical works as were of a
technical nature. Books of fiction, history, art, and biography,
and those books written by her father she did not include. She
found that she had a long task which would occupy several
evenings. Her mind was methodical and she had been with her
father through sufficient business transactions to understand
that in order to drive a good bargain she must know how many
volumes she had to offer and the importance of their authors as
medical authorities; she should also know the exact condition of
each set of books. Since she had made up her mind to let them
go, and she knew the value of many of the big, leather-bound
volumes, she determined that she would not sell them until she
could secure the highest possible price for them.
Two months previously she would have consulted John Gilman and
asked him to arrange the transaction for her. Since he had
allowed himself to be duped so easily--or at least it had seemed
easy to Linda; for, much as she knew of Eileen, she could not
possibly know the weeks of secret plotting, the plans for
unexpected meetings, the trumped-up business problems necessary
to discuss, the deliberate flaunting of her physical charms
before him, all of which had made his conquest extremely hard for
Eileen, but Linda, seeing only results, had thought it
contemptibly easy--she would not ask John Gilman anything. She
would go ahead on the basis of her agreement with Eileen and do
the best she could alone.
She counted on Saturday to dispose of the furniture. The books
might go at her leisure. Then the first of the week she could
select such furniture as she desired in order to arrange the
billiard room for her study. If she had a suitable place in
which to work in seclusion, there need be no hurry about the
library. She conscientiously prepared all the lessons required
in her school course for the next day and then, stacking her
books, she again unlocked the drawer opened the previous evening,
and taking from it the same materials, set to work. She wrote:
Botanists have failed to mention that there is any connection
between asparagus, originally a product of salt marshes, and
Yucca, a product of the alkaline desert. Very probably there is
no botanical relationship, but these two plants are alike in
flavor. From the alkaline, sunbeaten desert where the bayonet
plant thrusts up a tender bloom head six inches in height, it
slowly increases in stature as it travels across country more
frequently rain washed, and winds its way beside mountain streams
to where in more fertile soil and the same sunshine it develops
magnificent specimens from ten to fifteen and more feet in
height. The plant grows a number of years before it decides to
flower. When it reaches maturity it throws up a bloom stem as
tender as the delicate head of asparagus, thick as one's upper
arm, and running to twice one's height. This bloom stem in its
early stages is colored the pale pink of asparagus, with faint
touches of yellow, and hints of blue. At maturity it breaks into
a gorgeous head of lavender-tinted, creamy pendent flowers
covering the upper third of its height, billowing out slightly in
the center, so that from a distance the waxen torch takes on very
much the appearance of a flaming candle. For this reason, in
Mexico, where the plant flourishes in even greater abundance than
in California, with the exquisite poetry common to the tongue and
heart of the Spaniard, Yucca Whipplei has been commonly named
"Our Lord's Candle." At the most delicate time of their growth
these candlesticks were roasted and eaten by the Indians. Based
upon this knowledge, I would recommend two dishes, almost equally
delicious, which may be pre. pared from this plant.
Take the most succulent young bloom stems when they have exactly
the appearance of an asparagus head at its moment of delicious
perfection. With a sharp knife, cut them in circles an inch in
depth. Arrange these in a shallow porcelain baking dish,
sprinkle with salt, dot them with butter, add enough water to
keep them from sticking and burning. Bake until thoroughly
tender. Use a pancake turner to slide the rings to a hot
platter, and garnish with circles of hard-boiled egg. This you
will find an extremely delicate and appetizing dish.
The second recipe I would offer is to treat this vegetable
precisely as you would creamed asparagus. Cut the stalks in
six-inch lengths, quarter them to facilitate cooking and
handling, and boil in salted water. Drain, arrange in a hot
dish, and pour over a carefully made cream sauce. I might add
that one stalk would furnish sufficient material for several
families. This dish should be popular in southwestern states
where the plant grows profusely; and to cultivate these plants
for shipping to Eastern markets would be quite as feasible as the
shipping of asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes, or lettuce.
I have found both these dishes peculiarly appetizing, but I
should be sorry if, in introducing Yucca as a food, I became
instrumental in the extermination of this universal and
wonderfully beautiful plant. For this reason I have hesitated
about including Yucca among these articles; but when I see the
bloom destroyed ruthlessly by thousands who cut it to decorate
touring automobiles and fruit and vegetable stands beside the
highways, who carry it from its native location and stick it in
the parching sun of the seashore as a temporary shelter, I feel
that the bloom stems might as well be used for food as to be so
ruthlessly wasted.
The plant is hardy in the extreme, growing in the most
unfavorable places, clinging tenaciously to sheer mountain and
canyon walls. After blooming and seeding the plant seems to have
thrown every particle of nourishment it contains into its
development, it dries out and dies (the spongy wood is made into
pincushions for the art stores); but from the roots there spring
a number of young plants, which, after a few years of growth,
mature and repeat their life cycle, while other young plants
develop from the widely scattered seeds. The Spaniards at times
call the plant Quiota. This word seems to be derived from
quiotl, which is the Aztec name for Agave, from which plant a
drink not unlike beer is produced, and suggests the possibility
that there might have been a time when the succulent flower stem
of the Yucca furnished drink as well as food for the Indians.
After carefully re-reading and making several minor corrections,
Linda picked up her pencil, and across the top of a sheet of
heavy paper sketched the peaks of a chain of mountains. Across
the base she drew a stretch of desert floor, bristling with the
thorns of many different cacti brilliant with their gold, pink,
and red bloom, intermingled with fine grasses and desert flower
faces.
At the left she painstakingly drew a huge plant of yucca with a
perfect circle of bayonets, from the center of which uprose the
gigantic flower stem the length of her page, and on the misty
bloom of the flaming tongue she worked quite as late as Marian
Thorne had ever seen a light burning in her window. When she had
finished her drawing she studied it carefully a long time, adding
a touch here and there, and then she said softly: "There, Daddy,
I feel that even you would think that a faithful reproduction
Tomorrow night I'll paint it."
John Gilman saw the light from Linda's window when he brought
Eileen home that night, and when he left he glanced that way
again, and was surprised to see the room still lighted, and the
young figure bending over a worktable. He stood very still for a
few minutes, wondering what could keep Linda awake so far into
the night, and while his thoughts were upon her he wondered, too,
why she did not care to have beautiful clothes such as Eileen
wore; and then he went further and wondered why, when she could
be as entertaining as she had been the night she joined them at
dinner, she did not make her appearance oftener; and then,
because the mind is a queer thing, and he had wondered about a
given state of affairs, he went a step further, and wondered
whether the explanation lay in Linda's inclinations or in
Eileen's management, and then his thought fastened tenaciously
upon the subject of Eileen's management.
He was a patient man. He had allowed his reason and better
judgment to be swayed by Eileen's exquisite beauty and her
blandishments. He did not regret having discovered before it was
too late that Marian Thorne was not the girl he had thought her.
He wanted a wife cut after the clinging-vine pattern. He wanted
to be the dominating figure in his home. It had not taken Eileen
long to teach him that Marian was self-assertive and would do a
large share of dominating herself. He had thought that he was
perfectly satisfied and very happy with Eileen; yet that day he
repeatedly had felt piqued and annoyed with her. She had openly
cajoled and flirted with Henry Anderson past a point which was
agreeable for any man to see his sweetheart go with another man
With Peter Morrison she had been unspeakably charming in a manner
with which John was very familiar.
He turned up his coat collar, thrust his hands in his pockets,
and swore softly. Looking straight ahead of him, he should have
seen a stretch of level sidewalk, bordered on one hand by lacy,
tropical foliage, on the other, by sheets of level green lawn,
broken everywhere by the uprising boles of great trees, clumps of
rare vines, and rows of darkened homes, attractive in
architectural
_,
design' vine covered, hushed for the night. What he really saw
was a small plateau, sun illumined, at the foot of a mountain
across the valley, where the lilac wall was the bluest, where the
sun shone slightly more golden than anywhere else in the valley,
where huge live oaks outstretched rugged arms, where the air had
a tang of salt, a tinge of sage, an odor of orange, shot through
with snowy coolness, thrilled with bird song, and the laughing
chuckle of a big spring breaking from the foot of the mountain.
They had left the road and followed a narrow, screened path by
which they came unexpectedly into this opening. They had stood
upon it in wordless enchantment, looking down the slope beneath
it, across the peace of the valley, to the blue ranges beyond.
"Just where are we?" Peter Morrison had asked at last.
John Gilman had been looking at a view which included Eileen.
She lifted her face, flushed and exquisite, to Peter Morrison and
answered in a breathless undertone, yet John had distinctly heard
her:
"How wonderful it would be if we were at your house. Oh, I envy
the woman who shares this with you !"
It had not been anything in particular, yet all day it had teased
John Gilman's sensibilities. He felt ashamed of himself for not
being more enthusiastic as he searched records and helped to
locate the owner of that particular spot. To John, there was a
new tone in Peter's voice, a possessive light in his eyes as he
studied the location, and made excursions in several directions,
to fix in his mind the exact position of the land.
He had indicated what he considered the topographical location
for a house--stood on it facing the valley, and stepped the
distance suitably far away to set a garage and figured on a short
private road down to the highway. He very plainly was deeply
prepossessed with a location John Gilman blamed himself for not
having found first. Certainly nature had here grown and walled a
dream garden in which to set a house of dreams. So, past
midnight, Gilman stood in the sunshine, looking at the face
of the girl he had asked to marry him and who had said that she
would; and a small doubt crept into his heart, and a feeling that
perhaps life might be different for him if Peter Morrison decided
to come to Lilac Valley to build his home. Then the sunlight
faded, night closed in, but as he went his homeward way John
Gilman was thinking, thinking deeply and not at all happily.
CHAPTER VIII. The Bear Cat
"Friday's child is loving and giving,
But Saturday's child must work for a living,"
Linda was chanting happily as she entered the kitchen early
Saturday morning.
"Katy, me blessing," she said gaily, "did I ever point out to you
the interesting fact that I was born on Saturday? And a devilish
piece of luck it was, for I have been hustling ever since. It's
bad enough to have been born on Monday and spoiled wash day, but
I call Saturday the vanishing point, the end of the extreme
limit."
Katy laughed, and, as always, turned adoring eyes on Linda.
"I am not needing ye, lambie," she said. "Is it big business in
the canyon ye're having today? Shall I be ready to be cooking up
one of them God-forsaken Red Indian messes for ye when ye come
back?"
Linda held up a warning finger.
"Hiss, Katy," she said. "That is a dark secret. Don't you be
forgetting yourself and saying anything like that before anyone,
or I would be ruined entirely."
"Well, I did think when ye began it," said Katy, "that of all the
wild foolishness ye and your pa had ever gone through with, that
was the worst, but that last mess ye worked out was so tasty to
the tongue that I thought of it a lot, and I'm kind o' hankering
for more."
Linda caught Katy and swung her around the kitchen in a wild war
dance. Her gayest laugh bubbled clear from the joy peak of her
soul.
"Katy," she said, "if you had lain awake all night trying to say
something that would particularly please me, you couldn't have
done better. That was a quaint little phrase and a true little
phrase, and I know a little spot that it will fit exactly. What
am I doing today? Well, several things, Katy. First, anything
you need about the house. Next, I am going to empty the billiard
room and sell some of the excess furniture of the library, and
with the returns I am going to buy me a rug and a table and some
tools to work with, so I won't have to clutter up my bedroom with
my lessons and things I bring in that I want to save. And then I
am going to sell the technical stuff from the library and use
that money where it will be of greatest advantage to me. And
then, Katy, I am going to manicure the Bear Cat and I am going to
drive it again."
Linda hesitated. Katy stood very still, thinking intently, but
finally she said: "That's all right; ye have got good common
sense; your nerves are steady; your pa drilled ye fine. Many's
the time he has bragged to me behind your back what a fine little
driver he was making of ye. I don't know a girl of your age
anywhere that has less enjoyment than ye. If it would be giving
ye any happiness to be driving that car, ye just go ahead and
drive it, lambie, but ye promise me here and now that ye will be
mortal careful. In all my days I don't think I have seen a
meaner-looking little baste of a car."
"Of course I'll be careful, Katy," said Linda. "That car was not
bought for its beauty. Its primal object in this world was to
arrive. Gee, how we shot curves, and coasted down the canyons,
and gassed up on the level when some poor soul went batty from
nerve strain! The truth is, Katy, that you can't drive very
slowly. You have got to go the speed for which it was built.
But I have had my training. I won't forget. I adore that car,
Katy, and I don't know how I have ever kept my fingers off it
this long. Today it gets a bath and a facial treatment, and when
1 have thought up some way to meet my big problem, you're going
to have a ride, Katy, that will quite uplift your soul. We'll go
scooting through the canyons, and whizzing around the mountains,
and roaring along the beach, as slick as a white sea swallow."
"Now, easy, lambie, easy," said Katy. "Ye're planning to speed
that thing before ye've got it off the jacks."
"No, that was mere talk," said Linda. "But, Katy, this is my
great day. I feel in my bones that I shall have enough money by
night to get me some new tires, which I must have before I can
start out in safety."
"Of course ye must, honey. I would just be tickled to pieces to
let ye have what ye need."
Linda slid her hand across Katy's lips and gathered her close in
her arms.
"You blessed old darling," she said. "Of course you would, but I
don't need it, Katy. I can sit on the floor to work, if I must,
and instead of taking the money from the billiard table to buy a
worktable, I can buy tires with that. But here's another thing I
want to tell you, Katy. This afternoon a male biped is coming to
this house, and he's not coming to see Eileen. His name is
Donald Whiting, and when he tells you it is, and stands very
straight and takes off his hat, and looks you in the eye and
says, 'Calling on Miss Linda Strong,' walk him into the living
room, Katy, and seat him in the best chair and put a book beside
him and the morning paper; and don't you forget to do it with a
flourish. He is nothing but a high-school kid, but he's the
first boy that ever in all my days asked to come to see me so
it's a big event; and I wish to my soul I had something decent to
wear."
"Well, with all the clothes in this house," said Katy; and then
she stopped and shut her lips tight and looked at Linda with
belligerent Irish eyes.
"I know it," nodded Linda in acquiescence; "I know what you
think; but never mind. Eileen has agreed to make me a fair
allowance the first of the month, and if that isn't sufficient, I
may possibly figure up some way to do some extra work that will
bring me a few honest pennies, so I can fuss up enough to look
feminine at times, Katy. In the meantime, farewell, oh, my
belovedest. Call me at half-past eight, so I will be ready for
business at nine."
Then Linda went to the garage and began operations. She turned
the hose on the car and washed the dust from it carefully. Then
she dried it with the chamois skins as she often had done before.
She carefully examined the cushioning, and finding it dry and
hard, she gave it a bath of olive oil and wiped and manipulated
it. She cleaned the engine with extreme care. At one minute she
was running to Katy for kerosene to pour through the engine to
loosen the carbon. At another she was telephoning for the
delivery of oil, gasoline, and batteries for which she had no
money to pay, so she charged them to Eileen, ordering the bill to
be sent on the first of the month. It seemed to her that she had
only a good start when Katy came after her.
The business of appraising the furniture was short, and Linda was
well satisfied with the price she was offered for it. After the
man had gone she showed Katy the pieces she had marked to dispose
of, and told her when they would be called for. She ate a few
bites of lunch while waiting for the book man, and the results of
her business with him quite delighted Linda. She had not known
that the value of books had risen with the price of everything
else. The man with whom she dealt had known her father. He had
appreciated the strain in her nature which made her suggest that
he should number and appraise the books, but she must be allowed
time to go through each volume in order to remove any scraps of
paper or memoranda which her father so frequently left in books
to which he was referring. He had figured carefully and he had
made Linda a far higher price than could have been secured by a
man. As the girl went back to her absorbing task in the garage,
she could see her way clear to the comforts and conveniences and
the material that she needed for her work. When .she reached the
car she patted it as if it had been a living creature.
"Cheer up, nice old thing," she said gaily. "I know how to get
new tires for you, and you shall drink all the gasoline and oil
your tummy can hold. Now let me see. What must I do next? I
must get you off your jacks; and oh, my gracious there are the
grease cups, and that's a nasty job, but it must be done; and
what is the use of Saturday if I can't do it? Daddy often did."
Linda began work in utter absorption. She succeeded in getting
the car off the jacks. She was lying on her back under it,
filling some of the most inaccessible grease cups, and she was
softly singing as she worked:
"The shoes I wear are common-sense shoes--"
At that minute Donald Whiting swung down the street, turned in at
the Strong residence, and rang the bell. Eileen was coming down
the stairs, dressed for the street. She had inquired for Linda,
and Katy had told her that she thought Miss Linda had decided to
begin using her car, and that she was in the garage working on
it. To Eileen's credit it may be said that she had not been told
that a caller was expected. Linda never before had had a caller
and, as always, Eileen was absorbed in her own concerns. Had she
got the rouge a trifle brighter on one cheek than on the other?
Was the powder evenly distributed? Would the veil hold the
handmade curls in exactly the proper place? When the bell rang
her one thought might have been that some of her friends were
calling for her. She opened the door, and when she learned that
Linda was being asked for, it is possible that she mistook the
clean, interesting, and well-dressed youngster standing before
her for a mechanic. What she said was: "Linda's working on her
car. Go around to the left and you will find her in the garage,
and for heaven's sake, get it right before you let her start out,
for we've had enough horror in this family from motor accidents."
Then she closed the door before him and stood buttoning her
gloves; a wicked and malicious smile spreading over her face.
"Just possibly," she said, "that youngster is from a garage, but
if he is, he's the best imitation of the real thing that I have
seen in these chaotic days."
Donald Whiting stopped at the garage door and looked in, before
Linda had finished her grease cups, and in time to be informed
that he might wear common-sense shoes if he chose. At his step,
Linda rolled her black head on the cement floor and raised her
eyes. She dropped the grease cup, and her face reddened deeply.
"Oh, my Lord!" she gasped breathlessly. "I forgot to tell Katy
when to call me!"
In that instant she also forgot that the stress of the previous
four years had accustomed men to seeing women do any kind of work
in any kind of costume; but soon Linda realized that Donald
Whiting was not paying any particular attention either to her or
to her occupation. He was leaning forward, gazing at the car
with positively an enraptured expression on his eager young face.
"Shades of Jehu!" he cried. "It's a Bear Cat!"
Linda felt around her head for the grease cup.
"Why, sure it's a Bear Cat," she said with the calmness of
complete recovery. "And it's just about ready to start for its
very own cave in the canyon."
Donald Whiting pitched his hat upon the seat, shook off his coat,
and sent it flying after the hat. Then he began unbuttoning and
turning back his sleeves.
"Here, let me do that," he said authoritatively. "Gee! I have
never yet ridden in a Bear Cat. Take me with you, will you,
Linda?"
"Sure," said Linda, pressing the grease into the cup with a
little paddle and holding it up to see if she had it well filled.
"Sure, but there's no use in you getting into this mess, because
I have only got two more. You look over the engine. Did you
ever grind valves, and do you think these need it?"
"Why, they don't need it," said Donald, "if they were all right
when it was jacked up."
"Well, they were," said Linda. "It was running like a watch when
it went to sleep. But do we dare take it out on these tires?"
"How long has it been?" asked Donald, busy at the engine.
"All of four years," answered Linda.
Donald whistled softly and started a circuit of the car, kicking
the tires and feeling them.
"Have you filled them?" he asked.
"No," said Linda. "I did not want to start the engine until I
had finished everything else."
"All right," he said, "I'll look at the valves first and then, if
it is all ready, there ought to be a garage near that we can run
to carefully, and get tuned up."
"There is," said Linda. "There is one only a few blocks down the
street where Dad always had anything done that he did not want to
do himself."
"That's that, then," said Donald.
Linda crawled from under the car and stood up, wiping her hands
on a bit of waste.
"Do you know what tires cost now?" she asked anxiously.
"They have 'em at the garage," answered Donald, "and if I were
you, I wouldn't get a set; I would get two. I would-put them on
the rear wheels. You might be surprised at how long some of
these will last. Anyway, that would be the thing to do."
"Of course," said Linda, in a relieved tone. "That would be the
thing to do."
"Now," she said, "I must be excused a few minutes till I clean up
so I am fit to go on the streets. I hope you won't think I
forgot you were coming."
Donald laughed drily.
"When 'shoes' was the first word I heard," he said, "I did not
for a minute think you had forgotten."
"No, I didn't forget," said Linda. "What I did do was to become
so excited about cleaning up the car that I let time go faster
than I thought it could. That was what made me late."
"Well, forget it!" said Donald. "Run along and jump into
something, and let us get our tires and try Kitty out."
Linda reached up and released the brakes. She stepped to one
side of the car and laid her hands on it.
"Let us run it down opposite the kitchen door," she said, "then
you go around to the front, and I'll let you in, and you can read
something a few minutes till I make myself presentable."
"Oh, I'll stay out here and look around the yard and go over the
car again," said the boy. "What a bunch of stuff you have got
growing here; I don't believe I ever saw half of it before."
"It's Daddy's and my collection," said Linda. "Some day I'll
show you some of the things, and tell you how we got them, and
why they are rare. Today I just naturally can't wait a minute
until I try my car."
"Is it really yours?" asked Donald enviously.
"Yes," said Linda. "It's about the only thing on earth that is
peculiarly and particularly mine. I haven't a doubt there are
improved models, but Daddy had driven this car only about nine
months. It was going smooth as velvet, and there's no reason why
it should not keep it up, though I suspect that by this time
there are later models that could outrun it."
"Oh, I don't know," said the boy. "It looks like some little old
car to me. I bet it can just skate."
"I know it can," said Linda, "if I haven't neglected something.
We'll start carefully, and we'll have the inspector at the
salesrooms look it over."
Then Linda entered the kitchen door to find Katy with everything
edible that the house afforded spread before her on the table.
"Why, Katy, what are you doing?" she asked.
"I was makin' ready," explained Katy, "to fix ye the same kind of
lunch I would for Miss Eileen. Will ye have it under the live
oak, or in the living room?"
"Neither," said Linda. "Come upstairs with me, and in the
storeroom you'll find the lunch case and the thermos bottles
and don't stint yourself, Katy. This is a rare occasion. It
never happened before. Probably it will never happen again.
Let's make it high altitude while we are at it."
"I'll do my very best with what I happen to have," said Katy;
"but I warn you right now I am making a good big hole in the
Sunday dinner."
"I don't give two whoops," said Linda, "if there isn't any Sunday
dinner. In memory of hundreds of times that we have eaten bread
and milk, make it a banquet, Katy, and we'll eat bread and milk
tomorrow."
Then she took the stairway at a bound, and ran to her room. Ln a
very short time she emerged, clad in a clean blouse and breeches'
her climbing boots, her black hair freshly brushed and braided.
"I ought to have something," said Linda, "to shade my eyes. i
The glare's hard on them facing the sun."
Going down the hall she came to the storeroom, opened a drawer'
and picked out a fine black felt Alpine hat that had belonged to
her father. She carried it back to her room and, standing at the
glass, tried it on, pulling it down on one side, turning it up at
the other, and striking a deep cleft across the crown. She
looked at herself intently for a minute, and then she reached up
and deliberately loosened the hair at her temples.
"Not half bad, all things considered, Linda," she said. "But,
oh, how you do need a tich of color."
She ran down the hall and opened the door to Eileen's room, and
going to her chiffonier, pulled out a drawer containing an array
of gloves, veils, and ribbons. At the bottom of the ribbon
stack, her eye caught the gleam of color for which she was
searching, and she deftly slipped out a narrow scarf of Roman
stripes with a deep black fringe at the end. Sitting down, she
fitted the hat over her knee, picked up the dressing-table
scissors,and ripped off the band. In its place she fitted the
ribbon, pinning it securely and knotting the ends so that the
fringe reached her shoulder. Then she tried the hat again. The
result was blissfully satisfactory. The flash of orange, the
blaze of red, the gleam of green, were what she needed.
"Thank you very much, sister mine," she said, "I know you I would
be perfectly delighted to loan me this."
CHAPTER IX. One Hundred Per Cent Plus
Then she went downstairs and walked into the kitchen, prepared
for what she would see, by what she heard as she approached.
With Katy's apron tied around his waist, Donald Whiting was
occupied in squeezing orange, lemon, and pineapple juice over a
cake of ice in a big bowl, preparatory to the compounding of
Katy's most delicious brand of fruit punch. Without a word,
Linda stepped to the bread board and began slicing the bread and
building sandwiches, while Katy hurried her preparations for
filling the lunch box. A few minutes later Katy packed them in
the car, kissed Linda good-bye, and repeatedly cautioned Donald
to make her be careful.
As the car rolled down the driveway and into the street, Donald
looked appraisingly at the girl beside him.
"Is it the prevailing custom in Lilac Valley for young ladies to
kiss the cook?" inquired Donald laughingly.
"Now, you just hush," said Linda. "Katy is NOT the cook, alone.
Katy's my father, and my mother, and my family, and my best
friend--"
"Stop right there," interposed Donald. "That is quite enough for
any human to be. Katy's a multitude. She came out to the car
with the canteen, and when I offered to help her, without any
'polly foxin',' she just said: 'Sure. Come in and make yourself
useful.' So I went, and I am expecting amazing results from the
job she gave me."
"Come to think of it," said Linda, "I have small experience with
anybody's cooking except Katy's and my own, but so far as I know,
she can't very well be beaten."
Carefully she headed the car into the garage adjoining the
salesrooms. There she had an ovation. The manager and several
of the men remembered her. The whole force clustered around the
Bear Cat and began to examine it, and comment on it, and Linda
climbed out and asked to have the carburetor adjusted, while the
mechanic put on a pair of tires. When everything was
satisfactory, she backed to the street, and after a few blocks of
experimental driving, she headed for the Automobile Club to
arrange for her license and then turned straight toward
Multiflores Canyon, but she did not fail to call Donald Whiting's
attention to every beauty of Lilac Valley as they passed through.
When they had reached a long level stretch of roadway leading to
the canyon, Linda glanced obliquely at the boy beside her.
"It all comes back as natural as breathing," she said. "I
couldn't forget it any more than I could forget how to walk, or
to swim. Sit tight. I am going to step on the gas for a bit,
just for old sake's sake."
"That's all right," said Donald, taking off his hat and giving
his head a toss so that the wind might have full play through his
hair. "But remember our tires are not safe. Better not go the
limit until we get rid of these old ones, and have a new set all
around."
Linda settled back in her seat, took a firm grip on the wheel,
and started down the broad, smooth highway, gradually increasing
the speed. The color rushed to her cheeks. Her eyes were
gleaming.
"Listen to it purr!" she cried to Donald. "If you hear it begin
to growl, tell me."
And then for a few minutes they rode like birds on the path of
the wind. When they approached the entrance to the canyon,
gradually Linda slowed down. She turned an exultant flashing
face to Donald Whiting.
"That was a whizzer," said the boy. "I'll tell you I don't know
what I'd give to have a car like this for my very own. I'll bet
not another girl in Los Angeles has a car that can go like that."
"And I don't believe I have any business with it," said Linda;
"but since circumstances make it mine, I am going to keep it and
I am going to drive it."
"Of course you are," said Donald emphatically. "Don't YoU ever
let anybody fool you out of this car, because if they wanted to,
it would be just because they are jealous to think they haven't
one that will go as fast."
"There's not the slightest possibility of my giving it up so long
as I can make the engine turn over," she said. "I told you how
Father always took me around with him, and there's nothing in
this world I am so sure of as I am sure that I am spoiled for a
house cat. I have probably less feminine sophistication than any
girl of my age in the world, and I probably know more about
camping and fishing and the scientific why and wherefore of all
outdoors than most of them. I just naturally had such a heavenly
time with Daddy that it never has hurt my feelings to be left out
of any dance or party that ever was given. The one thing that
has hurt is the isolation. Since I lost Daddy I haven't anyone
but Katy. Sometimes, when I see a couple of nice, interesting
girls visiting with their heads together, a great feeling of envy
wells up in my soul, and I wish with all my heart that I had such
a friend."
"Ever try to make one?" asked Donald. "There are mighty fine
girls in the high school."
"I have seen several that I thought I would like to be friends
with," said Linda, "but I am so lacking in feminine graces that I
haven't known how to make advances, in the first place, and I
haven't had the courage, in the second."
"I wish my sister were not so much older than you," said Donald.
"How old is your sister?" inquired Linda.
"She will be twenty-three next birthday," said Donald; "and of
all the nice girls you ever saw, she is the queen."
"Yes," she assented, "I am sure I have heard your sister
mentioned. But didn't you tell me she had been reared for
society?"
"No, I did not," said Donald emphatically. "I told you Mother j
believed in dressing her as the majority of other girls were
dressed, but I didn't say she had been reared for society. She
has been reared with an eye single to making a well-dressed,
cultured, and gracious woman."
"I call that fine," said Linda. "Makes me envious of you. Now
forget everything except your eyes and tell me what you see.
Have you ever been here before?"
"I have been through a few times before, but seems to me I |
never saw it looking quite so pretty."
Linda drove carefully, but presently Donald uttered an
exclamation as she swerved from the road and started down what
appeared to be quite a steep embankment and headed straight for
the stream.
"Sit tight," she said tersely. "The Bear Cat just loves its
cave. It knows where it is going."
She broke through a group of young willows and ran the car ! into
a tiny plateau, walled in a circle by the sheer sides of the !
canyon reaching upward almost out of sight, topped with great
jagged overhanging boulders. Crowded to one side, she stopped
the car and sat quietly, smiling at Donald Whiting.
"How about it?" she asked in a low voice.
The boy looked around him, carefully examining the canyon walls,
and then at the level, odorous floor where one could not step
without crushing tiny flowers of white, cerise, blue, and yellow.
Big ferns grew along the walls, here and there "Our Lord's
Candles" lifted high torches not yet lighted, the ambitious
mountain stream skipped and circled and fell over its rocky bed,
while many canyon wrens were singing.
"Do you think," she said, "that anyone driving along here at an
ordinary rate of speed would see that car?"
"No," said Donald, getting her idea, "I don't believe they
would."
"All right, then," said Linda. "Toe up even and I'll race YoU to
the third curve where you see the big white sycamore."
Donald had a fleeting impression of a flash of khaki, a gleam of
red, and a wave of black as they started. He ran with all the
speed he had ever attained at a track meet. He ran with all his
might. He ran until his sides strained and his breath came
short; but the creature beside him was not running; she was
flying; and long before they neared the sycamore he knew he was
beaten, so he laughingly cried to her to stop it. Linda turned
to him panting and laughing.
"I make that dash every time I come to the canyon, to keep my
muscle up, but this is the first time I have had anyone to race
with in a long time."
Then together they slowly walked down the smooth black floor
between the canyon walls. As they crossed a small bridge Linda
leaned over and looked down.
"Anyone at your house care about 'nose twister'?" she asked
lightly.
"Why, isn't that watercress?" asked Donald.
"Sure it is," said Linda. "Anyone at your house like it?"
"Every one of us," answered Donald. "We're all batty about cress
salad--and, say, that reminds me of something! If you know so
much about this canyon and everything in it, is there any place
in it where a fellow could find a plant, a kind of salad lettuce,
that the Indians used to use?"
"Might be," said Linda carelessly. "For why?"
"Haven't you heard of the big sensation that is being made in
feminine circles by the new department in Everybody's Home?"
inquired Donald. "Mother and Mary Louise were discussing it the
other day at lunch, and they said that some of the recipes for
dishes to be made from stuff the Indians used sounded delicious.
One reminded them of cress, and when we saw the cress I wondered
if I could get them some of the other."
"Might," said Linda drily, "if you could give me a pretty good
idea of what it is that you want."
"When you know cress, it's queer that you wouldn't know other
things in your own particular canyon," said Donald.
Linda realized that she had overdone her disinterestedness a
trifle.
"I suspect it's miners' lettuce you want," she said. "Of course
I know where there's some, but you will want it as fresh as
possible if you take any, so we'll finish our day first and
gather it the last thing before we leave."
How it started neither of them noticed, but they had not gone far
before they were climbing the walls and hanging to precarious
footings. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brilliant, her lips
laughing, Linda was showing Donald thrifty specimens of that
Cotyledon known as "old hen and chickens," telling him of the
rare Echeveria of the same family, and her plunge down the canyon
side while trying to uproot it, exulting that she had brought
down the plant without a rift in the exquisite bloom on its
leaves.
Linda told about her fall, and the two men who had passed at that
instant, and how she had met them later, and who they were, and
what they were doing. Then Donald climbed high for a bunch of
larkspur, and Linda showed him how to turn his back to the canyon
wall and come down with the least possible damage to his person
and clothing. When at last both of them were tired they went
back to the car. Linda spread an old Indian blanket over the
least flower-grown spot she could select, brought out the thermos
bottles and lunch case, and served their lunch. With a glass of
fruit punch in one hand and a lettuce sandwich in the other,
Donald smiled at Linda.
"I'll agree about Katy. She knows how," he said appreciatively.
"Katy is more than a cook," said Linda quietly. "She is a human
being. She has the biggest, kindest heart. When anybody's sick
or in trouble she's the greatest help. She is honest; she has
principles; she is intelligent. In her spare time she reads good
books and magazines. She knows what is going on in the world.
She can talk intelligently on almost any subject. It's no
disgrace to be a cook. If it were, Katy would be unspeakable.
Fact is, at the present minute there's no one in all the world
so dear to me as Katy. I always talk Irish with her."
"Well, I call that rough on your sister," said Donald.
"Maybe it is," conceded Linda. "I suspect a lady wouldn't have i
said that, but Eileen and I are so different. She never has made
the slightest effort to prove herself lovable to me, and so I
have never learned to love her. Which reminds me--how did you
happen to come to the garage?"
"The very beautiful young lady who opened the door mistook me for
a mechanic. She told me I would find you working on your car and
for goodness' sake to see that it was in proper condition before
you drove it."
Linda looked at him with wide, surprised eyes in which a trace of
indignation was plainly discernible.
"Now listen to me," she said deliberately. "Eileen is a most
sophisticated young lady. If she saw you, she never in this
world, thought you were a mechanic sent from a garage presenting
yourself at our front door."
"There might have been a spark of malice in the big blue-gray I
eyes that carefully appraised me," said Donald.
"Your choice of words is good," said Linda, refilling the punch
glass. "'Appraise' fits Eileen like her glove. She appraises
every thing on a monetary basis, and when she can't figure that
it's going to be worth an appreciable number of dollars and cents
to her--'to the garage wid it,' as Katy would say."
When they had finished their lunch Linda began packing the box
and Donald sat watching her.
"At this point," said Linda, "Daddy always smoked. Do you
smoke?"
There was a hint of deeper color in the boy's cheeks.
"I did smoke an occasional cigarette," he said lightly, "up to
the day, not a thousand years ago, when a very emphatic young
lady who should have known, insinuated that it was bad for the
nerves, and going on the presumption that she knew, I haven't
smoked a cigarette since and I'm not going to until I find out
whether I can do better work without them."
Linda folded napkins and packed away accessories thoughtfully.
Then she looked into the boy's eyes.
"Now we reach the point of our being here together," she said.
"It's time to fight, and I am sorry we didn't go at it gas and
bomb
õ' the minute we met. You're so different from what I thought
you were. If anyone had told me a week ago that you would take
off your coat and mess with my automobile engine, or wear Katy's
apron and squeeze lemons in our kitchen I would have looked
! him over for Daddy's high sign of hysteria, at least. It's too
bad to
I have such a good time as I have had this afternoon, and then
end with a fight."
I"That's nothing," said Donald. "You couldn't have had as
| good a time as I have had. You're like another boy. A fellow
can be just a fellow with you, and somehow you make everything
you touch mean something it never meant before. You have made me
feel that I would be about twice the man I am if I had spent the
time I have wasted in plain jazzing around, hunting Cotyledon or
trap-door spiders' nests."
"I get you," said Linda. "It's the difference between a girl
reared in an atmosphere of georgette and rouge, and one who has
grown up in the canyons with the oaks and sycamores. One is
natural and the other is artificial. Most boys prefer the
artificial."
"I thought I did myself," said Donald, "but today has taught me
that I don't. I think, Linda, that you would make the finest
friend a fellow ever had. I firmly and finally decline to fight
with you; but for God's sake, Linda, tell me how I can beat that
little cocoanut-headed Jap."
Linda slammed down the lid to the lunch box. Her voice was
smooth and even but there was battle in her eyes and she answered
decisively: "Well, you can't beat him calling him names. There
is only one way on God's footstool that you can beat him. You
can't beat him legislating against him. You can't beat him
boycotting him. You can't beat him with any tricks. He is as
sly as a cat and he has got a whole bag full of tricks of his
own, and he has proved right here in Los Angeles that he has got
a brain that is hard to beat. All you can do, and be a man
commendable to your own soul, is to take his subject and put your
brain on it to such purpose that you cut pigeon wings around him.
What are you studying in your classes, anyway?"
"Trigonometry, Rhetoric, Ancient History, Astronomy," answered
Donald.
"And is your course the same as his?" inquired Linda.
"Strangely enough it is," answered Donald. "We have been in the
same classes all through high school. I think the little monkey-
-"
"Man, you mean," interposed Linda.
"'Man,'" conceded Donald. "Has waited until I selected my course
all the way through, and then he has announced what he would
take. He probably figured that I had somebody with brains back
of the course I selected, and that whatever I studied would be
suitable for him."
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Linda. "They are quick; oh! they
are quick; and they know from their cradles what it is that they
have in the backs of their heads. We are not going to beat them
driving them to Mexico or to Canada, or letting them monopolize
China. That is merely temporizing. That is giving them fertile
soil on which to take the best of their own and the level best of
ours, and by amalgamating the two, build higher than we ever
have. There is just one way in all this world that we can beat
Eastern civilization and all that it intends to do to us
eventually. The white man has dominated by his color so far in
the history of the world, but it is written in the Books that
when the men of color acquire our culture and combine it with
their own methods of living and rate of production, they are
going to bring forth greater numbers, better equipped for the
battle of life, than we are. When they have got our last secret,
constructive or scientific, they will take it, and living in a
way that we would not, reproducing in numbers we don't, they will
beat us at any game we start, if we don't take warning while we
are in the ascendancy, and keep there."
"Well, there is something to think about," said Donald Whiting,
staring past Linda at the side of the canyon as if he had seen
the same handwriting on the wall that dismayed Belshazzar at the
feast that preceded his downfall.
"I see what you're getting at," he said. "I had thought that
there might be some way to circumvent him."
"There is!" broke in Linda hastily. "There is. You can beat
him, but you have got to beat him in an honorable way and in a
way that is open to him as it is to you."
"I'll do anything in the world if you will only tell me how,"
said Donald. "Maybe you think it isn't grinding me and
humiliating me properly. Maybe you think Father and Mother
haven't warned me. Maybe you think Mary Louise isn't secretly
ashamed of me. How can I beat him, Linda?"
Linda's eyes were narrowed to a mere line. She was staring at
the wall back of Donald as if she hoped that Heaven would
intercede in her favor and write thereon a line that she might
translate to the boy's benefit.
"I have been watching pretty sharply," she said. "Take them as a
race, as a unit--of course there are exceptions, there always are
--but the great body of them are mechanical. They are imitative.
They are not developing anything great of their own in their own
country. They are spreading all over the world and carrying home
sewing machines and threshing machines and automobiles and
cantilever bridges and submarines and aeroplanes--anything from
eggbeaters to telescopes. They are not creating one single
thing. They are not missing imitating everything that the white
man can do anywhere else on earth. They are just like the
Germans so far as that is concerned."
"I get that, all right enough," said Donald. "Now go on. What
is your deduction? How the devil am I to beat the best? He is
perfect, right straight along in everything."
The red in Linda's cheeks deepened. Her eyes opened their
widest. She leaned forward, and with her closed fist, pounded
the blanket before him.
"Then, by gracious," she said sternly, "you have got to do
something new. You have got to be perfect, PLUS."
"'Perfect, plus?'" gasped Donald.
"Yes, sir!" said Linda emphatically. "You have got to be
perfect, plus. If he can take his little mechanical brain and
work a thing out till he has got it absolutely right, you have
got to go further than that and discover something pertaining to
it not hitherto thought of and start something NEW. I tell you
you must use your brains. You should be more than an imitator.
You must be a creator!"
Donald started up and drew a deep breath.
"Well, some job I call that," he said. "Who do you think I am,
the Almighty?"
"No," said Linda quietly, "you are not. You are merely His son,
created in His own image, like Him, according to the Book, and
you have got to your advantage the benefit of all that has been
learned down the ages. We have got to take up each subject in
your course, and to find some different books treating this same
subject. We have got to get at it from a new angle. We must dig
into higher authorities. We have got to coach you till, when you
reach the highest note possible for the parrot, you can go ahead
and embellish it with a few mocking-bird flourishes. All Oka
Sayye knows how to do is to learn the lesson in his book
perfectly, and he is 100 per cent. I have told you what you must
do to add the plus, and you can do it if you are the boy I take
you for. People have talked about the 'yellow peril' till it's
got to be a meaningless phrase. Somebody must wake up to the
realization that it's the deadliest peril that ever has menaced
white civilization. Why shouldn't you have your hand in such
wonderful work?"
"Linda," said the boy breathlessly, "do you realize that you have
been saying 'we'? Can you help me? Will you help me?"
"No," said Linda, "I didn't realize that I had said 'we.' I
didn't mean two people, just you and me. I meant all the white
boys and girls of the high school and the city and the state and
the whole world. If we are going to combat the 'yellow peril' we
must combine against it. We have got to curb our appetites and
train our brains and enlarge our hearts till we are something
bigger and finer and numerically greater than this yellow peril.
We can't take it and pick it up and push it into the sea. We are
not Germans and we are not Turks. I never wanted anything in all
this world worse than I want to see you graduate ahead of Oka
Sayye. And then I want to see the white boys and girls of Canada
and of England and of Norway and Sweden and Australia, and of the
whole world doing exactly what I am recommending that you do in
your class and what I am doing personally in my own. I have had
Japs in my classes ever since I have been in school, but Father
always told me to study them, to play the game fairly, but to
BEAT them in some way, in some fair way, to beat them at the game
they are undertaking."
"Well, there is one thing you don't take into consideration,"
said Donald. "All of us did not happen to be fathered by
Alexander Strong. Maybe we haven't all got your brains."
"Oh, posher!" said Linda. "I know of a case where a little
Indian was picked up from a tribal battlefield in South America
and brought to this country and put into our schools, and there
was nothing that any white pupil in the school could do that he
couldn't, so long as it was imitative work. You have got to be
constructive. You have got to work out some way to get ahead of
them; and if you will take the history of the white races and go
over their great achievements in mechanics, science, art,
literature--anything you choose--when a white man is
constructive, when he does create, he can simply cut circles
around the colored races. The thing is to get the boys and girls
of today to understand what is going on in the world, what they
must do as their share in making the world safe for their
grandchildren. Life is a struggle. It always has been. It
always will be. There is no better study than to go into the
canyons or the deserts and efface yourself and watch life. It's
an all-day process of the stronger annihilating the weaker. The
one inexorable thing in the world is Nature. The eagle dominates
the hawk; the hawk, the falcon; the falcon, the raven; and so on
down to the place where the hummingbird drives the moth from his
particular trumpet flower. The big snake swallows the little
one. The big bear appropriates the desirable cave."
"And is that what you are recommending people to do?"
"No," said Linda, "it is not. That is wild. We go a step ahead
of the wild, or we ourselves become wild. We have brains, and
with our brains we must do in a scientific way what Nature does
with tooth and claw. In other words, and to be concrete, put
these things in the car while I fold the blanket. We'll gather
our miners' lettuce and then we'll go home and search Daddy's
library and see if there is anything bearing in a higher way on
any subject you are taking, so that you can get from it some new
ideas, some different angle, some higher light, something that
will end in speedily prefacing Oka Sayye's perfect with your
pluperfect!"
CHAPTER X. Katy to the Rescue
Linda delivered Donald Whiting at his door with an armload of
books and a bundle of miners' lettuce and then drove to her home
in Lilac Valley--in the eye of the beholder on the floor-level
macadam road; in her own eye she scarcely grazed it. The smooth,
easy motion of the car, the softly purring engine were thrilling.
The speed at which she was going was like having wings on her
body. The mental stimulus she had experienced in concentrating
her brain on Donald Whiting's problem had stimulated her
imagination. The radiant color of spring; the chilled, perfumed,
golden air; the sure sense of having found a friend, had ruffled
the plumes of her spirit. On the home road Donald had plainly
indicated that he would enjoy spending the morrow with her, and
she had advised him to take the books she had provided and lock
himself in his room and sweat out some information about Monday's
lessons which would at least arrest his professor's attention,
and lead his mind to the fact that something was beginning to
happen. And then she had laughingly added: "Tomorrow is Katy's
turn. I told the old dear I would take her as soon as I felt the
car was safe. Every day she does many things that she hopes will
give me pleasure. This is one thing I can do that I know will
delight her."
"Next Saturday, then?" questioned Donald. And Linda nodded.
"Sure thing. I'll be thinking up some place extra interesting.
Come in the morning if you want, and we'll take a lunch and go
for the day. Which do you like best, mountains or canyons or
desert or sea?"
"I like it best wherever what you're interested in takes you,"
said Donald simply.
"All right, then," answered Linda, "we'll combine business and
pleasure."
So they parted with another meeting arranged.
When she reached home she found Katy tearfully rejoicing, plainly
revealing how intensely anxious she had been. But when Linda
told her that the old tires had held, that the car ran
wonderfully, that everything was perfectly safe, that she drove
as unconsciously as she breathed, and that tomorrow Katy was to
go for a long ride, her joy was incoherent.
Linda laughed. She patted Katy and started down the hallway,
when she called back: "What is this package?"
"A delivery boy left it special only a few minutes ago. Must be
something Miss Eileen bought and thought she would want tomorrow,
and then afterward she got this invitation and went on as she
was."
Linda stood gazing at the box. It did look so suspiciously like
a dress box.
"Katy," she said, "I have just about got an irresistible impulse
to peep. I was telling Eileen last night of a dress I saw that I
thought perfect. It suited me better than any other dress I ever
did see. It was at 'The Mode.' This box is from 'The Mode.'
Could there be a possibility that she sent it up specially for
me?"
"I think she would put your name on it if she meant it for ye,"
said Katy.
"One peep would show me whether it is my dress or not," said
Linda, "and peep I'm going to."
She began untying the string.
"There's one thing," said Katy, "Miss Eileen's sizes would never
fit ye."
"Might," conceded Linda. "I am taller than she is, but I could
wear her waists if I wanted to, and she always alters her skirts
herself to save the fees. Glory be! This is my dress, and
there's a petticoat and stockings to match it. Why, the nice old
thing! I suggested hard enough, but in my heart I hardly thought
she would do it. Oh, dear, now if I only had some shoes, and a
hat."
Linda was standing holding the jacket in one hand, the stockings
in the other, her face flaming. Katy drew herself to full
height. She reached over and picked the things from Linda's
fingers.
"If ye know that is your dress, lambie," she said
authoritatively, "ye go right out and get into that car and run
to town and buy ye a pair of shoes."
"But I have no credit anywhere and I have no money, yet," said
Linda.
"Well, I have," said Katy, "and this time ye're going to stop
your stubbornness and take enough to get ye what you need. Ye go
to the best store in Los Angeles and come back here with a pair
of shoes that just match those stockings, and ye go fast, before
the stores close. If ye've got to speed a little, do it in the
country and do it judacious."
"Katy, you're arriving!" cried Linda. "'Judicious speeding' is
one thing I learned better than any other lesson about driving a
motor car. Three fourths of the driving Father and I did we were
speeding judiciously."
Katy held the skirt to Linda's waist.
"Well, maybe it's a little shorter than any you have been
wearing, but it ain't as short as Eileen and all the rest of the
girls your age have them, so that's all right, honey. Slip on
your coat."
Katy's fingers were shaking as she lifted the jacket and Linda
slipped into it.
"Oh, Lord," she groaned, "ye can't be wearing that! The sleeves
don't come much below your elbows."
"You will please to observe," said Linda, "that they are flowing
sleeves and they are not intended to come below the elbows; but
it's a piece of luck I tried it on, for it reminds me that it's a
jacket suit and I must have a blouse. When you get the shoe
money, make it enough for a blouse--two blouses, Katy, one for
school and one to fuss up in a little."
Without stopping to change her clothing, Linda ran to the garage
and hurried back to the city. It was less than an hour's run,
but she made it in ample time to park her car and buy the shoes.
She selected a pair of low oxfords of beautiful color, matching
the stockings. Then she hurried to one of the big drygoods
stores and bought the two waists and an inexpensive straw hat
that would harmonize with the suit; a hat small enough to stick,
in the wind, with brim enough to shade her eyes. In about two
hours she was back with Katy and they were in her room trying on
the new clothing.
"It dumbfounds me," said Linda, "to have Eileen do this for me."
She had put on the shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse
of a soft, brownish wood-gray, with a bit of heavy brown silk
embroidery decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was
of silky changeable tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold
lifted and was strongly lighted, it was an exquisite silver-gray;
where a shadow fell deeply it was gray-brown. The coat reached
half way to the knees. It had a rippling skirt with a row of
brown embroidery around it, a deep belt with double buttoning at
the waistline, and collar and sleeves in a more elaborate pattern
of the same embroidery as the skirt. Linda perched the hat on
her head, pulled it down securely, and faced Katy.
"Now then!" she challenged.
"And it's a perfect dress!" said Katy proudly, "and you're just
the colleen to wear it. My, but I wisht your father could be
seeing ye the now."
With almost reverent hands Linda removed the clothing and laid it
away. Then she read a letter from Marian that was waiting for
her, telling Katy scraps of it in running comment as she scanned
the sheets.
"She likes her boarding place. There are nice people in it. She
has got a wonderful view from the windows of her room. She is
making friends. She thinks one of the men at Nicholson and
Snow's is just fine; he is helping her all he can, on the course
she is taking. And she wants us to look carefully everywhere for
any scrap of paper along the hedge or around the shrubbery on the
north side of the house. One of her three sheets of plans is
missing. I don't see where in the world it could have gone,
Katy."
Katy spread out her hands in despair.
"There was not a scrap of a sheet of paper in the room when I
cleaned it," she said, "not a scrap. And if I had seen a sheet
flying around the yard I would have picked it up. She just must
be mistaken about having lost it here. She must have opened her
case on the train and lost it there."
Linda shook her head.
"I put that stuff in the case myself," she said, "and the clothes
on top of it, and she wouldn't have any reason for taking those
things out on the train. I can't understand, but she did have
three rough sketches. She had her heart set on winning that
prize and it would be a great help to her, and certainly it was
the most comprehensive and convenient plan for a house of that
class that I ever have seen. If I ever have a house, she is
going to plan it, even if she doesn't get to plan John Gilman's
as he always used to say that she should. And by the way, Katy,
isn't it kind of funny for Eileen to go away over Sunday when
it's his only holiday?"
"Oh, she'll telephone him," said Katy, "and very like, he'll go
down, or maybe he is with her. Ye needn't waste any sympathy on
him. Eileen will take care that she has him so long as she
thinks she wants him."
Later it developed that Eileen had secured the invitation because
she was able to produce three most eligible men. Not only was
John Gilman with the party, but Peter Morrison and Henry
Anderson were there as well. It was in the nature of a hastily
arranged celebration, because the deal for three acres of land
that Peter Morrison most coveted on the small plateau, mountain
walled, in Lilac Valley, was in escrow. He had made a payment on
it. Anderson was working on his plans. Contractors had been
engaged, and on Monday work would begin. The house was to be
built as soon as possible, and Peter Morrison had arranged that
the garage was to be built first. This he meant to occupy as a
residence so that he could be on hand to superintend the
construction of the new home and to protect, as far as possible,
the natural beauty and the natural growth of the location.
Early Sunday morning Linda and Katy, with a full lunch box and a
full gasoline tank, slid from the driveway and rolled down the
main street of Lilac Valley toward the desert.
"We'll switch over and strike San Fernando Road," said Linda,
"and I'll scout around Sunland a bit and see if I can find
anything that will furnish material for another new dish."
That day was wonderful for Katy. She trotted after Linda over
sandy desert reaches, along the seashore, up mountain trails, and
through canyons connected by long stretches of motoring that was
more like flying than riding. She was tired but happy when she
went to bed. Monday morning she was an interested spectator as
Linda dressed for school.
"Sure, and hasn't the old chrysalis opened up and let out the
nicest little lady-bird moth, Katy?' inquired Linda as she
smoothed her gray-gold skirts. "I think myself that this dress
is a trifle too good for school. When I get my allowance next
week I think I'll buy me a cloth skirt and a couple of wash
waists and save this for better; but it really was good of Eileen
to take so much pains and send it to me, when she was busy
planning a trip."
Katy watched Linda go, and she noted the new light in her eyes,
the new lift of her head, and the proud sureness of her step, and
she wondered if a new dress could do all that for a girl, she
scarcely believed that it could. And, too, she had very serious
doubts about the dress. She kept thinking of it during the day,
and when Eileen came, in the middle of the afternoon, at the
first words on her lips: "Has my dress come?" Katy felt a wave
of illness surge through her. She looked at Eileen so helplessly
that that astute reader of human nature immediately Suspected
something.
"I sent it special," she said, "because I didn't know at the time
that I was going to Riverside and I wanted to work on it. Isn't
it here yet?"
Then Katy prepared to do battle for the child of her heart.
"Was the dress ye ordered sent the one Miss Linda was telling ye
about?" she asked tersely.
"Yes, it was," said Eileen. "Linda has got mighty good taste.
Any dress she admired was sure to be right. She said there was a
beautiful dress at 'The Mode'. I went and looked, and sure
enough there was, a perfect beauty."
"But she wanted the dress for herself," said Katy.
"It was not a suitable dress for school," said Eileen.
"Well, it strikes me," said Katy, "that it was just the spittin'
image of fifty dresses I've seen ye wear to school.
"What do you know about it?" demanded Eileen.
"I know just this," said Katy with determination. "Ye've had one
new dress in the last few days and you're not needin' another.
The blessed Virgin only knows when Miss Linda's had a dress. She
thought ye'd done yourself proud and sent it for her, and she put
it on, and a becoming and a proper thing it was too! I advanced
her the money myself and sent her to get some shoes to match it
since she had her car fixed and could go in a hurry. A beautiful
dress it is, and on her back this minute it is !"
Eileen was speechless with anger. Her face was a sickly white
and the rouge spots on her cheeks stood a glaring admission
"Do you mean to tell me--" she gasped.
"Not again," said the daughter of Erin firmly, "because I have
already told ye wance. Linda's gone like a rag bag since the
Lord knows when. She had a right to the dress, and she thought
it was hers, and she took it. And if ye ever want any more
respect or obedience or love from the kiddie, ye better never let
her know that ye didn't intend it for her, for nothing was ever
quite so fair and right as that she should have it; and while
you're about it you'd better go straight to the store and get her
what she is needin' to go with it, or better still, ye had better
give her a fair share of the money of which there used to be
such a plenty, and let her get her things herself, for she's that
tasty nobody can beat her when she's got anything to do with."
Eileen turned on Katy in a gust of fury.
"Katherine O'Donovan," she said shrilly, "pack your trunk and see
how quick you can get out of this house. I have stood your
insolence for years, and I won't endure it a minute longer!"
Katy folded her red arms and lifted her red chin, and a
steel-blue light flashed from her steel-gray eyes.
"Humph!" she said, "I'll do nothing of the sort. I ain't working
for ye and I never have been no more than I ever worked for your
mother. Every lick I ever done in this house I done for Linda
and Doctor Strong and for nobody else. Half of this house and
everything in it belongs to Linda, and it's a mortal short time
till she's of age to claim it. Whichever is her half, that half
I'll be staying in, and if ye manage so as she's got nothing to
pay me, I'll take care of her without pay till the day comes when
she can take care of me. Go to wid ye, ye triflin', lazy,
self-possessed creature. Ten years I have itched to tell ye what
I thought of ye, and now ye know it."
As Katy's rage increased, Eileen became intimidated. Like every
extremely selfish person she was a coward in her soul.
"If you refuse to go on my orders," she said, "I'll have John
Gilman issue his."
Then Katy set her left hand on her left hip, her lower jaw shot
past the upper, her doubled right fist shook precious near the
tip of Eileen's exquisite little nose.
"I'm darin' ye," she shouted. "I'm just darin' ye to send John
Gilman in the sound of my voice. If ye do, I'll tell him every
mean and selfish thing ye've done to me poor lambie since the day
of the Black Shadow. Send him to me? Holy Mither, I wish ye
would! If ever I get my chance at him, don't ye think I won't be
tellin' him what he has lost, and what he has got? And as for
taking orders from him, I am taking my orders from the person I
am working for, and as I told ye before, that's Miss Linda. Be
off wid ye, and primp up while I get my supper, and mind ye
this,, if ye tell Miss Linda ye didn't mean that gown for her and
spoil the happy day she has had, I won't wait for ye to send John
Gilman to me; I'll march straight to him. Put that in your
cigarette and smoke it! Think I've lost me nose as well as me
sense?"
Then Katy started a triumphal march to the kitchen and cooled
down by the well-known process of slamming pots and pans for half
an hour. Soon her Irish sense of humor came to her rescue.
"Now, don't I hear myself telling Miss Linda a few days ago to
kape her temper, and to kape cool, and to go aisy. Look at the
aise of me when I got started. By gracious, wasn't I just
itching to wallop her?"
Then every art that Katy possessed was bent to the consummation
of preparing a particularly delicious dinner for the night.
Linda came in softly humming something to herself about the kind
of shoes that you might wear if you chose. She had entered the
high school that morning with an unusually brilliant color. Two
or three girls, who never had noticed her before, had nodded to
her that morning, and one or two had said: "What a pretty dress
you have!" She had caught the flash of approval in the eyes of
Donald Whiting, and she had noted the flourish with which he
raised his hat when he saw her at a distance, and she knew what
he meant when he held up a book, past the covers of which she
could see protruding a thick fold of white paper. He had
foresworn whatever pleasure he might have thought of for Sunday.
He had prepared notes on some subject that he thought would
further him. The lift of his head, the flourish of his hat, and
the book all told Linda that he had struggled and that he felt
the struggle had brought an exhilarating degree of success. That
had made the day particularly bright for Linda. She had gone
home with a feeling of uplift and exultation in her heart. As
she closed the front door she cried up the stairway: "Eileen,
are you there?"
"Yes," answered a rather sulky voice from above.
Linda ascended, two steps at a bound.
"Thank you over and over, old thing!" she cried as she raced down
the hallway. "Behold me! I never did have a more becoming dress,
and Katy loaned me money, till my income begins, to get shoes and
a little scuff hat to go with it. Aren't I spiffy?"
She pirouetted in the doorway. Eileen gripped the brush she was
wielding, tight.
"You have good taste," she said. "It's a pretty dress, but
You're always howling about things being suitable. Do you call
that suitable for school?"
"It certainly is an innovation for me," said Linda, "but there
are dozens of dresses of the same material, only different cut
and colors in the high school today. As soon as I get my money
I'll buy a skirt and some blouses so I won't have to wear this
all the time; but I surely do thank you very much, and I surely
have had a lovely day. Did you have a nice time at Riverside?"
Eileen slammed down the brush and turned almost a distorted face
to Linda. She had temper to vent. In the hour's reflection
previous to Linda's coming, she realized that she had reached the
limit with Katy. If she antagonized her by word or look, she
would go to John Gilman, and Eileen dared not risk what she would
say.
"No, I did not have a lovely time," she said. "I furnished the
men for the party and I expected to have a grand time, but the
first thing we did was to run into that inflated egotist calling
herself Mary Louise Whiting, and like a fool, Janie Brunson
introduced her to Peter Morrison. I had paired him with Janie on
purpose to keep my eye on him."
Linda tried hard but she could not suppress a chuckle: "Of
course you would!" she murmured softly.
Eileen turned her back. That had been her first confidence to
Linda. She was so aggrieved at that moment that she could have
told unanswering walls her tribulations. It would have been
better if she had done so. She might have been able to construe
silence as sympathy. Linda's laughter she knew exactly how to
interpret. "Served you right," was what it meant.
"I hadn't the least notion you would take an interest in anything
concerning me," she said. "People can talk all they please about
Mary Louise Whiting being a perfect lady but she is a perfect
beast. I have met her repeatedly and she has always ignored me,
and yesterday she singled out for her special attention the most
desirable man in my party--"
"'Most desirable,'" breathed Linda. "Poor John! I see his second
fiasco. Lavender crystals, please!"
Eileen caught her lip in mortification. She had not intended to
say what she thought.
"Well, you can't claim," she hurried on to cover her confusion,
"that it was not an ill-bred, common trick for her to take
possession of a man of my party, and utterly ignore me. She has
everything on earth that I want; she treats me like a dog, and
she could give me a glorious time by merely nodding her head."
"I am quite sure you are mistaken," said Linda. "From what I've
heard of her, she wouldn't mistreat anyone. Very probably what
she does is merely to feel that she is not acquainted with you.
You have an unfortunate way, Eileen, of defeating your own ends.
If you wanted to attract Mary Louise Whiting, you missed the best
chance you ever could have had, at three o'clock Saturday
afternoon, when you maliciously treated her only brother as you
would a mechanic, ordered him to our garage, and shut our door in
his face."
Eileen turned to Linda. Her mouth fell open. A ghastly greenish
white flooded her face.
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"I mean," said Linda, "that Donald Whiting was calling on me, and
you purposely sent him to the garage."
Crash down among the vanities of Eileen's dressing table went her
lovely head, and she broke into deep and violent sobs. Linda
stood looking at her a second, slowly shaking her head. Then she
turned and went to her room.
Later in the evening she remembered the Roman scarf and told
Eileen of what she had done, and she was unprepared for Eileen's
reply: "That scarf always was too brilliant for me. You're
welcome to it if you want it."
"Thank you," said Linda gravely, "I want it very much indeed."
CHAPTER XI. Assisting Providence
Linda went to the library to see to what state of emptiness it
had been reduced by the removal of several pieces of furniture
she had ordered taken away that day. As she stood on the
threshold looking over the room as usual, a throb of loving
appreciation of Katy swept through her heart. Katy had been
there before her. The room had been freshly swept and dusted,
the rugs had been relaid, the furniture rearranged skilfully, and
the table stood at the best angle to be lighted either by day or
night. On the table and the mantel stood big bowls of lovely
fresh flowers. Linda was quite certain that anyone entering the
room for the first time would have felt it completely furnished,
and she doubted if even Marian would notice the missing pieces.
Cheered in her heart, she ran up to the billiard room, and there
again Katy had preceded her. The windows were shining. The
walls and floor had been cleaned. Everything was in readiness
for the new furniture. Her heart full of gratitude, Linda went
to her room, prepared her lessons for the next day, and then drew
out her writing materials to answer Marian's letter. She wrote:
I have an acute attack of enlargement of the heart. So many
things have happened since your leaving. But first I must tell
you about your sketch. We just know you did not leave it here.
Katy says there was not a scrap in our bedroom when she cleaned
it; and as she knows you make plans and how precious they are to
you, I guarantee she would have saved it if she had found
anything looking like a parallelogram on a piece of paper. And I
have very nearly combed the lawn, not only the north side, but
the west, south, and east; and then I broke the laws and went
over to your house and crawled through a basement window and
worked my way up, and I have hunted every room in it, but there
is nothing there. You must have lost that sketch after you
reached San Francisco. I hope to all that's peaceful you did not
lay it down in the offices of Nicholson and Snow, or where you
take your lessons. I know nothing about architecture, but I do
know something about comfort in a home, and I thought that was
the most comfortable and convenient-looking house I ever had
seen.
Now I'll go on and tell you all the news, and I don't know which
is the bigger piece to burst on you first. Would you be more
interested in knowing that Peter Morrison has bought three acres
on the other side of the valley from us and up quite a way, or in
the astonishing fact that I have a new dress, a perfect love of a
dress, really too good for school? You know there was blood in
my eye when you left, and I didn't wait long to start action. I
have managed to put the fear of God into Eileen's heart so that
she has agreed to a reasonable allowance for me from the first of
next month; but she must have felt at least one small wave of
contrition when I told her about a peculiarly enticing dress I
had seen at The Mode. She sent it up right away, and Katy,
blessed be her loving footprints, loaned me money to buy a blouse
and some shoes to match, so I went to school today looking very
like the Great General Average, minus rouge, lipstick, hairdress,
and French heels.
I do hope you will approve of two things I have done.
Then Linda recounted the emptying of the billiard room, the
inroads in the library, the listing of the technical books, and
what she proposed to do with the money. And then, her face
slightly pale and her fingers slightly trembling, she wrote:
And, Marian dear, I hope you won't be angry with me when I tell
you that I have put the Bear Cat into commission and driven it
three times already. It is running like the feline it is, and I
am being as careful as I can. I know exactly how you will feel.
It is the same feeling that has held me all these months, when I
wouldn't even let myself think of it. But something happened at
school one day, Marian. You know the Whitings? Mary Louise
Whiting's brother is in the senior class. He is a six-footer,
and while he is not handsome he is going to be a real man when he
is fully developed, and steadied down to work. One day last week
he made it his business to stop me in the hall and twit me about
my shoes, and incidentally to ask me why I didn't dress like the
other girls; and some way it came rougher than if it had been one
of the girls. The more I thought about it the more wronged I
felt, so I ended in a young revolution that is to bring me an
income, a suitable place to work in and has brought me such a
pretty dress. I think it has brought Eileen to a sense of at
least partial justice about money, and it brought me back the
Bear Cat. You know the proudest moment of my life was when
Father would let me drive the little beast, and it all came back
as natural as breathing. Please don't worry, Marian. Nothing
shall happen, I promise you.
It won't be necessary to tell you that Katy is her darling old
self, loyal and steadfast as the sun, and quite as necessary and
as comforting to me. And I have a couple of other interests in
life that are going to--I won't say make up for your absence,
because nothing could do that--but they are going to give me
something interesting to think about, something agreeable to work
at, while you are gone. But, oh, Marian, do hurry. Work all day
and part of the night. Be Saturday's child yourself if you must,
just so you get home quick, and where your white head makes a
beacon light for the truest, lovingest pal you will ever have,
LINDA.
Linda laid down the pen, slid down in her chair, and looked from
the window across the valley, and she wondered if in her view lay
the location that had been purchased by Peter Morrison. She
glanced back at her letter and sat looking at the closing lines
and the signature.
"Much good that will do her," she commented. "When a woman loves
a man and loves him with all her heart, as Marian loved John, and
when she loses him, not because she has done a single unworthy
thing herself, but because he is so rubber spined that he will
let another woman successfully intrigue him, a lot of comfort she
is going to get from the love of a schoolgirl!"
Linda's eyes strayed to the window again, and traveled down to
the city and up the coast, all the way to San Francisco, and out
of the thousands of homes there they pictured a small, neat room,
full of Marian's belongings, and Marian herself bending over a
worktable, absorbed in the final draft of her precious plans.
Linda could see Marian as plainly as she ever had seen her, but
she let her imagination run, and she fancied that when Marian was
among strangers and where no one knew of John Gilman's defection,
that hers might be a very heavy heart, that hers might be a very
sad face. Then she went to planning. She had been desolate,
heart hungry, and isolated herself. First she had endured, then
she had fought; the dawn of a new life was breaking over her
hill. She had found work she was eager to do. She could put the
best of her brain, the skill of her fingers, the creative impulse
of her heart, into it.
She was almost sure that she had found a friend. She had a
feeling that when the coming Saturday had been lived Donald
Whiting would be her friend. He would want her advice and her
help in his work. She would want his companionship and the
stimulus of his mind, in hers. What Linda had craved was a dear
friend among the girls, but no girl had offered her friendship.
This boy had, so she would accept what the gods of time and
circumstance provided. It was a very wonderful thing that had
happened to her. Now why could not something equally wonderful
happen to Marian? Linda wrinkled her brows and thought deeply.
"It's the worst thing in all this world to work and work with
nobody to know about it and nobody to care," thought Linda.
"Marian could break a record if she thought John Gilman cared now
as he used to. It's almost a necessary element to her success.
If he doesn't care, she ought to be made to feel that somebody
cares. This thing of standing alone, since I have found a
friend, appeals to me as almost insupportable. Let me think."
It was not long until she had worked out a scheme for putting an
interest in Marian's life and giving her something for which to
work, until a more vital reality supplanted it. The result was
that she took some paper, went down to the library, and opening
the typewriter, wrote a letter. She read it over, making many
changes and corrections, and then she copied it carefully. When
she came to addressing it she was uncertain, but at last she hit
upon a scheme of sending it in the care of Nicholson and Snow
because Marian had told her that she meant to enter their contest
immediately she reached San Francisco, and she would have left
them her address. On the last reading of the letter she had
written, she decided that it was a manly, straightforward
production, which should interest and attract any girl. But how
was she to sign it? After thinking deeply for a long time, she
wrote "Philip Sanders, General Delivery," and below she added a
postscript:
To save you the trouble of inquiring among your friends as to who
Philip Sanders is, I might as well tell you in the beginning that
he isn't. He is merely an assumption under which I shall hide my
personality until you let me know whether it is possible that you
could become even slightly interested in me, as a small return
for the very deep and wholesome interest abiding in my heart for
you.
"Abiding," said Linda aloud. "It seems to me that there is
nothing in all the world quite so fine as a word. Isn't
'abiding' a good word? Doesn't it mean a lot? Where could you
find one other word that means being with you and also means
comforting you and loving you and sympathizing with you and
surrounding you with firm walls and a cushioned floor and a
starry roof? I love that word. I hope it impresses Marian with
all its wonderful meaning."
She went back to her room, put both letters into her Geometry,
and in the morning mailed them. She stood a long time hesitating
with the typewritten letter in her hand, but finally dropped it
in the letter box also.
"It will just be something," she said, "to make her think that
some man appreciates her lovely face and doesn't care if her hair
is white, and sees how steadfast and fine she is."
And then she slowly repeated, " 'steadfast,' that is another fine
word. It has pearls and rubies all over it."
After school that evening she visited James Brothers' and was
paid the full amount of the appraisement of her furniture. Then
she went to an art store and laid in a full supply of the
materials she needed for the work she was trying to do. Her
fingers were trembling as she handled the boxes of water colors
and selected the brushes and pencils for her work, and sheets of
drawing paper upon which she could do herself justice. When the
transaction was finished, she had a few dollars remaining. As
she put them in her pocket she said softly:
"That's gasoline. Poor Katy! I'm glad she doesn't need her
money, because she is going to have to wait for the allowance or
the sale of the books or on Jane Meredith. But it's only a few
days now, so that'll be all right."
CHAPTER XII. The Lay of the Land
Linda entered the street car for her daily ride to Lilac Valley.
She noticed Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson sitting beside each
other, deeply engrossed in a drawing. She had been accustomed to
ride in the open section of the car as she liked the fresh air.
She had a fleeting thought of entering the body of the car and
sitting where they would see her; and then a perverse spirit in
Linda's heart said to her:
"That is precisely what Eileen would do. You sit where you
belong."
Whereupon Linda dropped into the first vacant seat she could
reach, but it was only a few moments before Peter Morrison,
looking up from the plans he was studying, saw her, and lifting
his hat, beckoned her to come and sit with him. They made room
for her between them and spreading the paper across her lap, all
three of them began to discuss the plans for the foundation for
Peter's house. Anderson had roughly outlined the grounds,
sketching in the trees that were to be saved, the spring, and the
most available route for reaching the road. The discussion was
as to where the road should logically enter the grounds, and
where the garage should stand.
"Which reminds me," said Linda--"haven't you your car with you?
Or was that a hired one you were touring in?"
"Mine," said Peter Morrison, "but we toured so far, it's in the
shop for a general overhauling today."
"That being the case," said Linda, "walk home with me and I'll
take you to your place in mine and bring you back to the cars, if
you only want to stay an hour or two."
"Why, that would be fine," said Peter. "You didn't mention, the
other evening, that you had a car."
"No," said Linda, "I had been trying to keep cars out of my
thought for a long time, but I could endure it no longer the
other day, so I got mine out and tuned it up. If you don't mind
stacking up a bit, three can ride in it very comfortably."
That was the way it happened that Linda walked home after school
that afternoon between Peter Morrison and his architect, brought
out the Bear Cat, and drove them to Peter's location.
All that day, workmen had been busy under the management of a
well-instructed foreman, removing trees and bushes and stones and
clearing the spot that had been selected for the garage and
approximately for the house.
The soft brownish gray of Linda's dress was exactly the color to
intensify the darker brown of her eyes. There was a fluctuating
red in her olive cheeks, a brilliant red framing her even white
teeth. Once dressed so that she was satisfied with the results,
Linda immediately forgot her clothes, and plunged into Morrison's
plans.
"Peter," she said gravely, with Peter perfectly cognizant of the
twinkle in her dark eyes, "Peter, you may save money in a
straight-line road, but you're going to sin against your soul if
you build it. You'll have to economize in some other way, and
run your road around the base of those boulders, then come in
straight to the line here, and then you should swing again and
run out on this point, where guests can have one bewildering
glimpse of the length of our blue valley, and then whip them
around this clump of perfumy lilac and elders, run them to your
side entrance, and then scoot the car back to the garage. I
think you should place the front of your house about here."
Linda indicated where. "So long as you're buying a place like
this you don't want to miss one single thing; and you do want to
make the very most possible out of every beauty you have. And
you mustn't fail to open up and widen the runway from that
energetic, enthusiastic spring. Carry it across your road, sure.
It will cost you another little something for a safe bridge, but
there's nothing so artistic as a bridge with a cold stream
running under it. And think what a joyful time I'll have,
gathering specimens for you of every pretty water plant that
grows in my particular canyon. Any time when you're busy in your
library and you hear my car puffing up the incline and around the
corner and rattling across the bridge, you'll know that I am down
here giving you a start of watercress and miners' lettuce and
every lovely thing you could mention that likes to be nibbled or
loved-up, while it dabbles its toes in the water."
Peter Morrison looked at Linda reflectively. He looked for such
a long moment that Henry Anderson reached a nebulous conclusion.
"Fine!" he cried. "Every one of those suggestions is valuable to
an inexperienced man. Morrison, shan't I make a note of them?"
"Yes, Henry, you shall," said Peter. "I am going to push this
thing as fast as possible, so far as building the garage is
concerned and getting settled in it. After that I don't care if
I live on this spot until we know each other by the inch, before
I begin building my home. At the present minute it appeals to me
that 'home' is about the best word in the language of any nation.
I have a feeling that what I build here is going to be my home,
very possibly the only one I shall ever have. We must find the
spot on which the Lord intended that a house should grow on this
hillside, and then we must build that house so that it has a room
suitable for a workshop in which I may strive, under the best
conditions possible, to get my share of the joy of life and to
earn the money that I shall require to support me and entertain
my friends; and that sounds about as selfish as anything possibly
could. It seems to be mostly 'me' and 'mine,' and it's not the
real truth concerning this house. I don't believe there is a
healthy, normal man living who has not his dream. I have no
hesitation whatever in admitting that I have mine. This house
must be two things. It has got to be a concrete workshop for me,
and it has got to be an abstract abiding place for a dream. It's
rather difficult to build a dream house for a dream lady, so I
don't know what kind of a fist I am going to make of it."
Linda sat down on a boulder and contemplated her shoes for a
minute. Then she raised her ever-shifting, eager, young eyes to
Peter, and it seemed to him as he looked into them that there
were little gold lights flickering at the bottom of their
darkness.
"Why, that's just as easy," she said. "A home is merely a home.
It includes a front porch and a back porch and a fireplace and a
bathtub and an ice chest and a view and a garden around it; all
the rest is incidental. If you have more money, you have more
incidentals. If you don't have so much, you use your imagination
and think you have just as much on less."
"Now, I wonder," said Peter, "when I find my dream lady, if she
will have an elastic imagination."
"Haven't you found her yet?" asked Linda casually.
"No," said Peter, "I haven't found her, and unfortunately she
hasn't found me. I have had a strenuous time getting my start in
life. It's mostly a rush from one point of interest to another,
dropping at any wayside station for refreshment and the use of a
writing table. Occasionally I have seen a vision that I have
wanted to follow, but I never have had time. So far, the lady of
this house is even more of a dream than the house."
"Oh, well, don't worry," said Linda comfortingly. "The world is
full of the nicest girls. When you get ready for a gracious lady
I'll find you one that will have an India-rubber imagination and
a great big loving heart and Indian-hemp apron strings so that
half a dozen babies can swing from them."
Morrison turned to Henry Anderson.
"You hear, Henry?" he said. "I'm destined to have a large
family. You must curtail your plans for the workroom and make
that big room back of it into a nursery."
"Well, what I am going to do," said Henry Anderson, "is to build
a place suitable for your needs. If any dream woman comes to it,
she will have to fit herself to her environment."
Linda frowned.
"Now, that isn't a bit nice of you," she said, "and I don't
believe Peter will pay the slightest attention to you. He'll let
me make you build a lovely room for the love of his heart, and a
great big bright nursery on the sunny side for his small people."
"I never believed," said Henry Anderson, "in counting your
chickens before they are hatched. There are a couple of acres
around Peter's house, and he can build an addition as his needs
increase."
"Messy idea," said Linda promptly. "Thing to do, when you build
a house, is to build it the way you want it for the remainder of
your life, so you don't have to tear up the scenery every few
years, dragging in lumber for expansion. And I'll tell you
another thing. If the homemakers of this country don't get the
idea into their heads pretty soon that they are not going to be
able to hold their own with the rest of the world, with no
children, or one child in the family, there's a sad day of
reckoning coming. With the records at the patent office open to
the world, you can't claim that the brain of the white man is not
constructive. You can look at our records and compare them with
those of countries ages and ages older than we are, which never
discovered the beauties of a Dover egg-beater or a washing
machine or a churn or a railroad or a steamboat or a bridge. We
are head and shoulders above other nations in invention, and just
as fast as possible, we are falling behind in the birth rate.
The red man and the yellow man and the brown man and the black
man can look at our egg-beaters and washing machines and bridges
and big guns, and go home and copy them; and use them while
rearing even bigger families than they have now. If every home
in Lilac Valley had at least six sturdy boys and girls growing up
in it with the proper love of country and the proper realization
of the white man's right to supremacy, and if all the world now
occupied by white men could make an equal record, where would be
the talk of the yellow peril? There wouldn't be any yellow
peril. You see what I mean?"
Linda lifted her frank eyes to Peter Morrison.
"Yes, young woman," said Peter gravely, "I see what you mean, but
this is the first time I ever heard a high-school kid propound
such ideas. Where did you get them?"
"Got them in Multiflores Canyon from my father to start with,"
said Linda, "but recently I have been thinking, because there is
a boy in high school who is making a great fight for a better
scholarship record than a Jap in his class. I brood over it
every spare minute, day or night, and when I say my prayers I
implore high Heaven to send him an idea or to send me one that I
can pass on to him, that will help him to beat that Jap."
"I see," said Peter Morrison. "We'll have to take time to talk
this over. It's barely possible I might be able to suggest
something."
"You let that kid fight his own battles," said Henry Anderson
roughly. "He's no proper bug-catcher. I feel it in my bones."
For the first time, Linda's joy laugh rang over Peter Morrison's
possession.
"I don't know about that," she said gaily. "He's a wide-awake
specimen; he has led his class for four years when the Jap didn't
get ahead of him. But, all foolishness aside, take my word for
it, Peter, you'll be sorry if you don't build this house big
enough for your dream lady and for all the little dreams that may
spring from her heart."
"Nightmares, you mean," said Henry Anderson. "I can't imagine a
bunch of kids muddying up this spring and breaking the bushes and
using slingshots on the birds."
"Yes," said Linda with scathing sarcasm, "and wouldn't our
government be tickled to death to have a clear spring and a
perfect bush and a singing bird, if it needed six men to go over
the top to handle a regiment of Japanese!"
Then Peter Morrison laughed.
"Well, your estimate is too low, Linda," he said in his nicest
drawling tone of voice. "Believe me, one U. S. kid will never
march in a whole regiment of Japanese. They won't lay down their
guns and walk to surrender as bunches of Germans did. Nobody
need ever think that. They are as good fighters as they are
imitators. There's nothing for you to do, Henry, but to take to
heart what Miss Linda has said. Plan the house with a suite for
a dream lady, and a dining room, a sleeping porch and a nursery
big enough for the six children allotted to me."
"You're not really in earnest?" asked Henry Anderson in doubting
astonishment.
"I am in the deepest kind of earnest," said Peter Morrison.
"What Miss Linda says is true. As a nation, our people are
pampering themselves and living for their own pleasures. They
won't take the trouble or endure the pain required to bear and to
rear children; and the day is rolling toward us, with every turn
of the planet one day closer, when we are going to be outnumbered
by a combination of peoples who can take our own tricks and beat
us with them. We must pass along the good word that the one
thing America needs above every other thing on earth is HOMES AND
HEARTS BIG ENOUGH FOR CHILDREN, as were the homes of our
grandfathers, when no joy in life equaled the joy of a new child
in the family, and if you didn't have a dozen you weren't doing
your manifest duty."
"Well, if that is the way you see the light, we must enlarge this
house. As designed, it included every feminine convenience
anyway. But when I build my house I am going to build it for
myself."
"Then don't talk any more about being my bug-catcher," said Linda
promptly, "because when I build my house it's going to be a nest
that will hold six at the very least. My heart is perfectly set
on a brood of six."
Linda was quite unaware that the two men were studying her
closely, but if she had known what was going on in their minds
she would have had nothing to regret, because both of them found
her very attractive, and both of them were wondering how anything
so superficial as Eileen could be of the same blood as Linda.
"Are we keeping you too late?" inquired Peter.
"No," said Linda, "I am as interested as I can be. Finish
everything you want to do before we go. I hope you're going to
let me come over often and watch you with your building. Maybe I
can get an idea for some things I want to do. Eileen and I have
our house divided by a Mason and Dixon line. On her side is
Mother's suite, the dining room, the living room and the front
door. On mine there's the garage and the kitchen and Katy's
bedroom and mine and the library and the billiard room. At the
present minute I am interested in adapting the library to my
requirements instead of Father's, and I am emptying the billiard
room and furnishing it to make a workroom. I have a small talent
with a brush and pencil, and I need some bare walls to tack my
prints on to dry, and I need numerous places for all the things I
am always dragging in from the desert and the canyons; and since
I have the Bear Cat running, what I have been doing in that line
with a knapsack won't be worthy of mention."
"How did it come," inquired Henry Anderson, "that you had that
car jacked up so long?"
"Why, hasn't anybody told you," asked Linda, "about our day of
the Black Shadow?"
"John Gilman wrote me when it happened," said Peter softly, "but
I don't believe it has been mentioned before Henry. You tell
him."
Linda turned to Henry Anderson, and with trembling lips and
paling cheeks, in a few brief sentences she gave him the details.
Then she said to Peter Morrison in a low voice: "And that is the
why of Marian Thorne's white head. Anybody tell you that?"
"That white head puzzled me beyond anything I ever saw," he said.
"I meant to ask John about it. He used to talk to me and write
to me often about her, and lately he hasn't; when I came I saw
the reason, and so you see I felt reticent on the subject."
"Well, there's nothing the matter with my tongue," said Linda.
"It's loose at both ends. Marian was an expert driver. She
drove with the same calm judgment and precision and graceful
skill that she does everything else, but the curve was steep and
something in the brakes was defective. It broke with a snap and
there was not a thing she could do. Enough was left of the
remains of the car to prove that. Ten days afterward her head
was almost as white as snow. Before that it was as dark as mine.
But her body is just as young and her heart is just as young and
her face is even more beautiful. I do think that a white crown
makes her lovelier than she was before. I have known Marian ever
since I can remember, and I don't know one thing about her that I
could not look you straight in the eye and tell you all about.
There is not a subterfuge or an evasion or a small mean deceit in
her soul. She is the brainiest woman and the biggest woman I
know."
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Peter Morrison. "And while you
are talking about nice women, we met a mighty fine one at
Riverside on Sunday. Her name is Mary Louise Whiting. Do you
know her?"
"Not personally," said Linda. "I don't recall that I ever saw
her. I know her brother, Donald. He is the high-school boy who
is having the wrestle with the Jap."
"I liked her too," said Henry Anderson. "And by the way, Miss
Linda, haven't bug-catchers any reputation at all as nest
builders? Is it true that among feathered creatures the hen
builds the home?"
"No, it's not," said Linda promptly. "Male birds make a splendid
record carrying nest material. What is true is that in the
majority of cases the female does the building."
"Well, what I am getting at," said Henry Anderson, "is this. Is
there anything I can do to help you with that billiard room that
you're going to convert to a workroom? What do you lack in it
that you would like to have? Do you need more light or air, or a
fireplace, or what? When you take us to the station, suppose you
drive us past your house and give me a look at that room and let
me think over it a day or two. I might be able to make some
suggestion that would help you."
"Now that is positively sweet of you," said Linda. "I never
thought of such a thing as either comfort or convenience. I
thought I had to take that room as it stands and do the best I
could with it, but since you mention it, it's barely possible
that more air might be agreeable and also more light, and if
there could be a small fireplace built in front of the chimney
where it goes up from the library fireplace, it certainly would
be a comfort, and it would add something to the room that nothing
else could.
"No workroom really has a soul if you can't smell smoke and see
red when you go to it at night."
"You little outdoor heathen," laughed Peter Morrison. "One would
think you were an Indian."
"I am a fairly good Indian," said Linda. "I have been scouting
around with my father a good many years. How about it, Peter?
Does the road go crooked?"
"Yes," said Peter, "the road goes crooked."
"Does the bed of the spring curve and sweep across the lawn and
drop off to the original stream below the tree-tobacco clump
there?"
"If you say so, it does," said Peter.
"Including the bridge?" inquired Linda.
"Including the bridge," said Peter. "I'll have to burn some
midnight oil, but I can visualize the bridge."
"And is this house where you 'set up your rest,' as you so
beautifully said the other night at dinner, going to lay its
corner stone and grow to its roof a selfish house, or is it going
to be generous enough for a gracious lady and a flight of little
footsteps?"
Peter Morrison took off his hat. He turned his face toward the
length of Lilac Valley and stood, very tall and straight, looking
far away before him. Presently he looked down at Linda.
"Even so," he said softly. "My shoulders are broad enough; I
have a brain; and I am not afraid to work. If my heart is not
quite big enough yet, I see very clearly how it can be made to
expand."
"I have been told," said Linda in a low voice, "that Mary Louise
Whiting is a perfect darling."
Peter looked at her from the top of her black head to the tips of
her brown shoes. He could have counted the freckles bridging her
nose. The sunburn on her cheeks was very visible; there was
something arresting in the depth of her eyes, the curve of her
lips, the lithe slenderness of her young body; she gave the
effect of something smoldering inside that would leap at a
breath.
"I was not thinking of Miss Whiting," he said soberly.
Henry Anderson was watching. Now he turned his back and
commenced talking about plans, but in his heart he said: "So
that's the lay of the land. You've got to hustle yourself,
Henry, or you won't have the ghost of a show."
Later, when they motored down the valley and stopped at the
Strong residence, Peter refused to be monopolized by Eileen. He
climbed the two flights of stairs with Henry Anderson and Linda
and exhausted his fund of suggestions as to what could be done to
that empty billiard room to make an attractive study of it.
Linda listened quietly to all their suggestions, and then she
said:
"It would be fine to have another window, and a small skylight
would be a dream, and as for the fireplace you mention, I can't
even conceive how great it would be to have that; but my purse is
much more limited than Peter's, and while I have my school work
to do every day, my earning capacity is nearly negligible. I can
only pick up a bit here and there with my brush and pencil --
place cards and Easter cards and valentines, and once or twice
magazine covers, and little things like that. I don't see my way
clear to lumber and glass and bricks and chimney pieces."
Peter looked at Henry, and Henry looked at Peter, and a male high
sign, ancient as day, passed between them.
"Easiest thing in the world," said Peter. "It's as sure as
shooting that when my three or four fireplaces, which Henry's
present plans call for, are built, there is going to be all the
material left that can be used in a light tiny fireplace such as
could be built on a third floor, and when the figuring for the
house is done it could very easily include the cutting of a
skylight and an extra window or two here, and getting the
material in with my stuff, it would cost you almost nothing."
Linda's eyes opened wide and dewy with surprise and pleasure.
"Why, you two perfectly nice men!" she said. "I haven't felt as
I do this minute since I lost Daddy. It's wonderful to be taken
care of. It's better than cream puffs with almond flavoring."
Henry Anderson looked at Linda keenly.
"You're the darndest kid!" he said. "One minute you're smacking
your lips over cream puffs, and the next you're going to the
bottom of the yellow peril. I never before saw your combination
in one girl. What's the explanation?" For the second time that
evening Linda's specialty in rapture floated free.
"Bunch all the component parts into the one paramount fact that I
am Saturday's child," she said, "so I am constantly on the job of
working for a living, and then add to that the fact that I was
reared by a nerve specialist."
Then they went downstairs, and the men refused both Eileen's and
Linda's invitation to remain for dinner. When they had gone
Eileen turned to Linda with a discontented and aggrieved face.
"In the name of all that's holy, what are you doing or planning
to do?" she demanded.
"Not anything that will cost you a penny beyond my natural
rights," said Linda quietly.
"That is not answering my question," said Eileen. "You're not of
age and you're still under the authority of a guardian. If you
can't answer me, possibly you can him. Shall I send John Gilman
to ask what I want to know of you?"
"When did I ever ask you any questions about what you chose to
do?" asked Linda. "I am merely following the example that you
have previously set me. John Gilman and I used to be great
friends. It might help both of us to have a family reunion.
Send him by all means."
"You used to take pride," suggested Eileen, "in leading your
class."
"And has anyone told you that I am not leading my class at the
present minute?" asked Linda.
"No," said Eileen, "but what I want to point out to you is that
the minute you start running with the boys you will quit leading
your class."
"Don't you believe it," said Linda quietly. "I'm not built that
way. I shan't concentrate on any boy to the exclusion of
chemistry and geometry, never fear it."
Then she thoughtfully ascended the stairs and went to work.
Eileen went to her room and sat down to think; and the more she
thought, the deeper grew her anger and chagrin; and to the
indifference that always had existed in her heart concerning
Linda was added in that moment a new element. She was jealous of
her. How did it come that a lanky, gangling kid in her tees had
been paid a visit by the son of possibly the most cultured and
influential family of the city, people of prestige, comfortable
wealth, and unlimited popularity? For four years she had
struggled to gain an entrance in some way into Louise Whiting's
intimate circle of friends, and she had ended by shutting the
door on the only son of the family. And why had she ever allowed
Linda to keep the runabout? It was not proper that a young girl
should own a high powered car like that. It was not proper that
she should drive it and go racing around the country, heaven knew
where, and with heaven knew whom. Eileen bit her lip until it
almost bled. Her eyes were hateful and her hands were nervous as
she reviewed the past week. She might think any mean thing that
a mean brain could conjure up, but when she calmed down to facts
she had to admit that there was not a reason in the world why
Linda should not drive the car she had driven for her father, or
why she should not take with her Donald Whiting or Peter Morrison
or Henry Anderson. The thing that rankled was that the car
belonged to Linda. The touring car which she might have owned
and driven, had she so desired, lay in an extremely slender
string of pearls around her neck at that instant. She reflected
that if she had kept her car and made herself sufficiently hardy
to drive it, she might have been the one to have taken Peter
Morrison to his home location and to have had many opportunities
for being with him.
"I've been a fool," said Eileen, tugging at the pearls viciously.
"They are nothing but a little bit of a string that looks as if I
were trying to do something and couldn't, at best. What I've got
to do is to think more of myself. I've got to plan some way to
prevent Linda from being too popular until I really get my mind
made up as to what I want to do."
CHAPTER XIII. Leavening the Bread of Life
"'A house that is divided against itself cannot stand,'" quoted
Linda. "I must keep in mind what Eileen said, not that there is
the slightest danger, but to fall behind in my grades is a thing
that simply must not happen. If it be true that Peter and Henry
can so easily and so cheaply add a few improvements in my
workroom in connection with Peter's building, I can see no reason
why they shouldn't do it, so long as I pay for it. I haven't a
doubt but that there will be something I can do for Peter, before
he finishes his building, that he would greatly appreciate,
while, since I'm handy with my pencil, I MIGHT be able to make a
few head and tail pieces for some of his articles that would make
them more attractive. I don't want to use any friend of mine: I
don't want to feel that I am not giving quite as much as I get,
but I think I see my way clear, between me and the Bear Cat, to
pay for all the favors I would receive in altering my study.
"First thing I do I must go through Father's books and get the
money for them, so I'll know my limitation when I come to select
furniture. And I don't know that I am going to be so terribly
modest when it comes to naming the sum with which I'll be
satisfied for my allowance. Possibly I shall exercise my age-old
prerogative and change my mind; I may just say 'half' right out
loud and stick to it. And there's another thing. Since the
editor of Everybody's Home has started my department and promised
that if it goes well he will give it to me permanently, I can
certainly depend on something from that. He has used my
Introduction and two instalments now. I should think it might be
fair to talk payments pretty soon. He should give me fifty
dollars for a recipe with its perfectly good natural history and
embellished with my own vegetable and floral decorations.
"In the meantime I think I might buy my worktable and possibly an
easel, so I can have real room to spread out my new material and
see how it would feel to do one drawing completely unhampered.
I'll order the table tonight, and then I'll begin on the books,
because I must have Saturday free; and I must be thinking about
the most attractive and interesting place I can take Donald to.
I just have to keep him interested until he gets going of his own
accord, because he shall beat Oka Sayye. I wouldn't let Donald
say it but I don't mind saying myself to myself with no one
present except myself that in all my life I have never seen
anything so masklike as the stolid little square head on that
Jap. I have never seen anything I dislike more than the oily,
stiff, black hair standing up on it like menacing bristles. I
have never had but one straight look deep into his eyes, but in
that look I saw the only thing that ever frightened me in looking
into a man's eyes in my whole life. And there is one thing that
I have to remember to caution Donald about. He must carry on
this contest in a perfectly open, fair, and aboveboard way, and
he simply must not antagonize Oka Sayye. There are so many of
the Japs. They all look so much alike, and there's a blood
brotherhood between them that will make them protect each other
to the death against any white man. It wouldn't be safe for
Donald to make Oka Sayye hate him. He had far better try to make
him his friend and put a spirit of honest rivalry into his heart;
but come to think of it, there wasn't anything like that in my
one look into Oka Sayye's eyes. I don't know what it was, but
whatever it was it was something repulsive."
With this thought in her mind Linda walked slowly as she
approached the high school the next time. Far down the street,
over the walks and across the grounds, her eyes were searching
eagerly for the tall slender figure of Donald Whiting. She did
not see him in the morning, but at noon she encountered him in
the hall.
"Looking for you," he cried gaily when he saw her. "I've got my
pry in on Trig. The professor's interested. Dad fished out an
old Trig that he used when he was a boy and I have some new
angles that will keep my esteemed rival stirring up his gray
matter for some little time."
"Good for you! Joyous congratulations! You've got the idea!"
cried Linda. "Go to it! Start something all along the line, but
make it something founded on brains and reason and common sense.
But, Donald, I was watching for you. I wanted to say a word."
Donald Whiting bent toward her. The faintest suspicion of a
tinge of color crept into his cheeks.
"That's fine," he said. "What was it you wanted?"
"Only this," she said in almost a breathless whisper. "There is
nothing in California I am afraid of except a Jap, and I am
afraid of them, not potentially, not on account of what all of us
know they are planning in the backs of their heads for the
future, but right here and now, personally and physically. Don't
antagonize Oka Sayye. Don't be too precipitate about what you're
trying to do. Try to make it appear that you're developing ideas
for the interest and edification of the whole class. Don't incur
his personal enmity. Use tact."
"You think I am afraid of that little jiu-jitsu?', he scoffed.
"I can lick him with one hand."
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Linda, measuring his height and
apparent strength and fitness. "I haven't a doubt of it. But
let me ask you this confidentially: Have you got a friend who
would slip in and stab him in the back in case you were in an
encounter and he was getting the better of you?"
Donald Whiting's eyes widened. He looked at Linda amazed.
"Wouldn't that be going rather far?" he asked. "I think I have
some fairly good friends among the fellows, but I don't know just
whom I would want to ask to do me that small favor."
"That is precisely the point," cried Linda. "You haven't a
friend you would ask; and you haven't a friend who would do it,
if you did. But don't believe for one second that Oka Sayye
hasn't half a dozen who would make away with you at an unexpected
time and in a secluded place, and vanish, if it would in any way
further Oka Sayye's ambition, or help establish the supremacy of
the Japanese in California."
"Um-hm," said Donald Whiting.
He was looking far past Linda and now his eyes were narrowed in
thought. "I believe you're RIGHT about it."
"I've thought of you so often since I tried to spur you to beat
Oka Sayye," said Linda. "I feel a sort of responsibility for
you. It's to the honor and glory of all California, and the
United States, and the white race everywhere for you to beat him,
but if any harm should come to you I would always feel that I
shouldn't have urged it."
"Now that's foolishness," said Donald earnestly. "If I am such a
dub that I didn't have the ambition to think up some way to beat
a Jap myself, no matter what happens you shouldn't regret having
been the one to point out to me my manifest duty. Dad is a
Harvard man, you know, and that is where he's going to send me,
and in talking about it the other night I told him about you, and
what you had said to me. He's the greatest old scout, and was
mightily interested. He went at once and opened a box of books
in the garret and dug out some stuff that will be a big help to
me. He's going to keep posted and see what he can do; he said
even worse things to me than you did; so you needn't feel that
you have any responsibility; besides that, it's not proved yet
that I can beat Oka Sayye."
"Yes, it is!" said Linda, sending a straight level gaze deep into
his eyes. "Yes, it is! Whenever a white man makes up his mind
what he's going to do, and puts his brain to work, he beats any
man, of any other color. Sure you're going to beat him."
"Fat chance I have not to," said Donald, laughing ruefully. "If
I don't beat him I am disgraced at home, and with you; before I
try very long in this highly specialized effort I am making,
every professor in the high school and every member of my class
is bound to become aware of what is going on. You're mighty
right about it. I have got to beat him or disgrace myself right
at the beginning of my nice young career."
"Of course you'll beat him," said Linda.
"At what hour did you say I should come, Saturday?"
"Oh, come with the lark for all I care," said Linda. "Early
morning in the desert is a mystery and a miracle, and the larks
have been there just long enough to get their voices properly
tuned for their purest notes."
Then she turned and hurried away. Her first leisure minute after
reaching home she went to the library wearing one of Katy's big
aprons, and carrying a brush and duster. Beginning at one end of
each shelf, she took down the volumes she intended to sell,
carefully dusted them, wiped their covers, and the place on which
they had stood, and then opened and leafed through them so that
no scrap of paper containing any notes or memoranda of possible
value should be overlooked. It was while handling these volumes
that Linda shifted several of the books written by her father, to
separate them from those with which she meant to part. She had
grown so accustomed to opening each book she handled and looking
through it, that she mechanically opened the first one she picked
up and from among its leaves there fell a scrap of loose paper.
She picked it up and found it was a letter from the publishers of
the book. Linda's eyes widened suddenly as she read:
MY DEAR STRONG:
Sending you a line of congratulations. You have gone to the head
of the list of "best sellers" among medical works, and the cheque
I draw you for the past six months' royalties will be
considerably larger than that which goes to your most esteemed
contemporary on your chosen subject.
Very truly yours,
The signature was that of Frederic Dickman, the editor of one of
the biggest publishing houses of the country.
"Hm," she said to herself softly. "Now that is a queer thing.
That letter was written nearly five years ago. I don't know why
I never thought of royalties since Daddy went. I frequently
heard him mention them before. I suppose they're being paid to
John Gilman as administrator, or to the Consolidated Bank, and
cared for with Father's other business. There's no reason why
these books should not keep on selling. There are probably the
same number of young men, if not a greater number, studying
medicine every year. I wonder now, about these royalties. I
must do some thinking."
Then Linda began to examine books more carefully than before.
The letter she carried with her when she went to her room; but
she made a point of being on the lawn that evening when John
Gilman came, and after talking to him a few minutes, she said
very casually: "John, as Father's administrator, does a royalty
from his medical books come to you?"
"No," said Gilman. "It is paid to his bank."
"I don't suppose," said Linda casually, "it would amount to
enough to keep one in shoes these inflated days."
"Oh, I don't know about that," said John testily. "I have seen a
few of those cheques in your Father's time. You should be able
to keep fairly well supplied with shoes."
"So I should," said Linda drily. "So I should."
Then she led him to the back of the house and talked the incident
out of his mind as cleverly as possible by giving him an
intensive botanical study of Cotyledon. But she could not
interest him quite so deeply as she had hoped, for presently he
said: "Eileen tells me that you're parting with some of the
books."
"Only technical ones for which I could have no possible use,"
said Linda. "I need clothes, and have found that had I a proper
place to work in and proper tools to work with, I could earn
quite a bit with my brush and pencil, and so I am trying to get
enough money together to fit up the billiard room for a workroom,
since nobody uses it for anything else."
"I see," said John Gilman. "I suppose running a house is
extremely expensive these days, but even so the income from your
estate should be sufficient to dress a schoolgirl and provide for
anything you would want in the way of furnishing a workroom."
"That's what I have always thought myself," said Linda; "but
Eileen doesn't agree with me, and she handles the money. When
the first of the month comes, we are planning to go over things
together, and she is going to make me a proper allowance."
"That is exactly as it should be," said Gilman. "I never
realized till the other night at dinner that you have grown such
a great girl, Linda. That's fine! Fix your workroom the way you
would like to have it, and if there's anything I can do to help
you in any way, you have only to command me. I haven't seen you
often lately."
"No," said Linda, "but I don't feel that it is exactly my fault.
Marian and I were always pals. When I saw that you preferred
Eileen, I kept with Marian to comfort her all I could. I don't
suppose she cared, particularly. She couldn't have, or she would
at least have made some effort to prevent Eileen from
monopolizing you. She probably was mighty glad to be rid of you;
but since you had been together so much, I thought she might miss
you, so I tried to cover your defection."
John Gilman's face flushed. He stood very still, while he seemed
deeply thoughtful.
"Of course you were free to follow your inclinations, or Eileen's
machinations, whichever you did follow," Linda said lightly, "but
'them as knows' could tell you, John, as Katy so well puts it,
that you have made the mistake of your young life."
Then she turned and went to the garage, leaving John to his visit
with Eileen.
The Eileen who took possession of John was an Eileen with whom he
was not acquainted. He had known, the night of the dinner party,
that Eileen was pouting, but there had been no chance to learn
from her what her grievance was, and by the next time they met
she was a bundle of flashing allurement, so he ignored the
occurrence. This evening, for the first time, it seemed to him
that Eileen was not so beautiful a woman as he had thought her.
Something had roiled the blood in her delicate veins until it had
muddied the clear freshness of her smooth satiny skin. There was
discontent in her eyes, which were her most convincing
attraction. They were big eyes, wide open and candid. She had
so trained them through a lifetime of practice that she could
meet other eyes directly while manipulating her most dextrous
evasion. Whenever Eileen was most deceptively subtle, she was
looking straight at her victim with the innocent appeal of a baby
in her gaze.
John Gilman had had his struggle. He had succeeded. He had
watched, and waited, and worked incessantly, and when his
opportunity came he was ready. Success had come to such a degree
that in a short time he had assured himself of comfort for any
woman he loved. He knew that his appearance was quite as
pleasing as that of his friend. He knew that in manner and
education they were equals. He was now handling large business
affairs. He had made friends in high places. Whenever Eileen
was ready, he would build and furnish a home he felt sure would
be equal, if not superior, to what Morrison was planning. Why
had Eileen felt that she would envy any woman who shared life
with Peter Morrison?
All that day she had annoyed him, because there must have been in
the very deeps of his soul "a still, small voice" whispering to
him that he had not lived up to the best traditions of a
gentleman in his course with Marian. While no definite plans had
been made, there had been endless assumption. Many times they
had talked of the home they would make together. When he reached
the point where he decided that he never had loved Marian as a
man should love the woman he marries, he felt justified in
turning to Eileen, but in his heart he knew that if he had been
the man he was pleased to consider himself, he would have gone to
Marian Thorne and explained, thereby keeping her friendship,
while he now knew that he must have earned her contempt.
The day at Riverside had been an enigma he could not solve.
Eileen was gay to a degree that was almost boisterous. She had
attracted attention and comment which no well-bred woman would
have done.
The growing discontent in John's soul had increased under Linda's
direct attack. He had known Linda since she was four years old
and had been responsible for some of her education. He had been
a large influence in teaching Linda from childhood to be a good
sport, to be sure she was right and then go ahead, and if she
hurt herself in the going, to rub the bruise, but to keep her
path.
A thing patent to the eye of every man who turned an appraising
look upon Linda always had been one of steadfast loyalty. You
could depend upon her. She was the counterpart of her father;
and Doctor Strong had been loved by other men. Wherever he had
gone he had been surrounded. His figure had been one that
attracted attention. When he had spoken, his voice and what he
had to say had commanded respect. And then there had emanated
from him that peculiar physical charm which gives such pleasing
and distinguished personality to a very few people in this world.
This gift too had descended to Linda. She could sit and look
straight at you with her narrow, interested eyes, smile faintly,
and make you realize what she thought and felt without opening
her lips. John did not feel very well acquainted with the girl
who had dominated the recent dinner party, but he did see that
she was attractive, that both Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson
had been greatly amused and very much entertained by her. He had
found her so interesting himself that he had paid slight
attention to Eileen's pouting.
Tonight he was forced to study Eileen, for the sake of his own
comfort to try to conciliate her. He was uncomfortable because
he was unable to conduct himself as Eileen wished him to, without
a small sickening disgust creeping into his soul. Before the
evening was over he became exasperated, and ended by asking
flatly: "Eileen, what in the dickens is the matter with you?"
It was a new tone and a new question on nerves tensely strung.
"If you weren't blind you'd know without asking," retorted Eileen
hotly.
"Then I am 'blind,' for I haven't the slightest notion. What
have I done?"
"Isn't it just barely possible," asked Eileen, "that there might
be other people who would annoy and exasperate me? I have not
hinted that you have done anything, although I don't know that
it's customary for a man calling on his betrothed to stop first
for a visit with her sister."
"For the love of Mike!" said John Gilman. "Am I to be found
fault with for crossing the lawn a minute to see how Linda's wild
garden is coming on? I have dug and helped set enough of those
plants to justify some interest in them as they grow."
"And the garden was your sole subject of conversation?" inquired
Eileen, implied doubt conveyed nicely.
"No, it was not," answered Gilman, all the bulldog in his nature
coming to the surface.
"As I knew perfectly," said Eileen. "I admit that I'm not
feeling myself. Things began going wrong recently, and
everything has gone wrong since. I think it all began with
Marian Thorne's crazy idea of selling her home and going to the
city to try to ape a man."
"Marian never tried to ape a man in her life," said John,
instantly yielding to a sense of justice. "She is as strictly
feminine as any woman I ever knew."
"Do you mean to say that you think studying architecture is a
woman's work?" sneered Eileen.
"Yes, I do," said Gilman emphatically. "Women live in houses.
They're in them nine tenths of the time to a man's one tenth.
Next to rocking a cradle I don't know of any occupation in this
world more distinctly feminine than the planning of comfortable
homes for homekeeping people."
Eileen changed the subject swiftly. "What was Linda saying to
you?" she asked.
"She was showing me a plant, a rare Echeveria of the Cotyledon
family, that she tobogganed down one side of Multiflores Canyon
and delivered safely on the roadway without its losing an
appreciable amount of 'bloom' from its exquisitely painted
leaves."
Eileen broke in rudely. "Linda has missed Marian. There's not a
possible thing to make life uncomfortable for me that she is not
doing. You needn't tell me you didn't see and understand her
rude forwardness the other night!"
"No, I didn't see it," said John, "because the fact is I thought
the kid was positively charming, and so did Peter and Henry
because both of them said so. There's one thing you must take
into consideration, Eileen. The time has come when she should
have clothes and liberty and opportunity to shape her life
according to her inclinations. Let me tell you she will attract
attention in georgette and laces."
"And where are the georgette and laces to come from?" inquired
Eileen sarcastically. "All outgo and no income for four years is
leaving the Strong finances in mighty precarious shape, I can
tell you."
"All right," said Gilman, "I'm financially comfortable now. I'm
ready. Say the word. We'll select our location and build our
home, and let Linda have what there is of the Strong income till
she is settled in life. You have pretty well had all of it for
the past four years."
"Yes," said Eileen furiously, "I have 'pretty well' had it, in a
few little dresses that I have altered myself and very frequently
made entirely. I have done the best I could, shifting and
skimping, and it's not accomplished anything that I have really
wanted. According to men, the gas and the telephone and the
electric light and the taxes and food and cook pay for
themselves. All a woman ever spends money on is clothes!"
"Eileen," chuckled John Gilman, "this sounds exactly as if we
were married, and we're not, yet."
"No," said Eileen, "thank heaven we're not. If it's come to the
place where you're siding with everybody else against me, and
where you're more interested in what my kid sister has to say to
you than you are in me, I don't think we ever shall be."
Then, from stress of nerve tension and long practice, some big
tears gushed up and threatened to overflow Eileen's lovely eyes.
That never should happen, for tears are salt water and they cut
little rivers through even the most carefully and skillfully
constructed complexion, while Eileen's was looking its worst that
evening. She hastily applied her handkerchief, and John Gilman
took her into his arms; so the remainder of the evening it was as
if they were not married. But when John returned to the subject
of a home and begged Eileen to announce their engagement and let
him begin work, she evaded him, and put him off, and had to have
time to think, and she was not ready, and there were many
excuses, for none of which Gilman could see any sufficient
reason. When he left Eileen that night, it was with a heavy
heart.
CHAPTER XIV. Saturday's Child
Throughout the week Linda had worked as never during her life
previously, in order to save Saturday for Donald Whiting. She
ran the Bear Cat down to the garage and had it looked over once
more to be sure that everything was all right. Friday evening,
on her way from school, she stopped at a grocery where she knew
Eileen kept an account, and for the first time ordered a few
groceries. These she carried home with her, and explained to
Katy what she wanted.
Katy fully realized that Linda was still her child, with no
thought in her mind save standing at the head of her classes,
carrying on the work she had begun with her father, keeping up
her nature study, and getting the best time she could out of life
in the open as she had been taught to do from her cradle.
Katy had not the slightest intention of opening her lips to say
one word that might put any idea into the head of her beloved
child, but she saw no reason why she herself should not harbor
all the ideas she pleased.
Whereupon, actuated by a combination of family pride, love,
ambition in her chosen profession, Katy made ready to see that on
the morrow the son of Frederick Whiting should be properly
nourished on his outing with Linda.
At six o'clock Saturday morning Linda ran the Bear Cat to the
back door, where she and Katy packed it. Before they had
finished, Donald Whiting came down the sidewalk, his cheeks
flushed with the exercise of walking, his eyes bright with
anticipation, his cause forever won--in case he had a cause--with
Katy, because she liked the wholesome, hearty manner in which he
greeted Linda, and she was dumbfounded when he held out his hand
to her and said laughingly: "Blessed among women, did you put in
a fine large consignment of orange punch?"
"No," said Katy, "I'll just tell ye flat-footed there ain't going
to be any punch, but, young sir, you're eshcortin' a very capable
young lady, and don't ye bewail the punch, because ye might be
complimenting your face with something ye would like a hape
better."
"Can't be done, Katy," cried Donald.
"Ye must have a poor opinion of us," laughed Katy, "if ye are
thinking ye can get to the end of our limitations in one lunch.
Fourteen years me and Miss Linda's been on this lunch-box stunt.
Don't ye be thinkin' ye can exhaust us in any wan trip, or in any
wan dozen."
So they said good-bye to Katy and rolled past Eileen's room on
the way to the desert. Eileen stood at the window watching them,
and never had her heart been so full of discontent and her soul
the abiding place of such envy or her mind so busy. Just when
she had thought life was going to yield her what she craved, she
could not understand how or why things should begin to go wrong.
As the Bear Cat traversed Lilac Valley, Linda was pointing out
Peter Morrison's location. She was telling Donald Whiting where
to find Peter's articles, and what a fine man he was, and that he
had promised to think how he could help with their plan to make
of Donald a better scholar than was Oka Sayye.
"Well, I call that mighty decent of a stranger," said Donald.
"But he is scarcely more of a stranger than I am," answered
Linda. "He is a writer. He is interested in humanity. It's the
business of every man in this world to reach out and help every
boy with whom he comes in contact into the biggest, finest
manhood possible. He only knows that you're a boy tackling a big
job that means much to every white boy to have you succeed with,
and for that reason he's just as interested as I am. Maybe, when
we come in this evening, I'll run up to his place, and you can
talk it over with him. If your father helped you at one angle,
it's altogether probable that Peter Morrison could help you at
another."
Donald Whiting rubbed his knee reflectively. He was sitting half
turned in the wide seat so that he might watch Linda's hands and
her face while she drove.
"Well, that's all right," he said heartily. "You can write me
down as willing and anxious to take all the help I can get, for
it's going to be no microscopic job, that I can tell you. One
week has waked up the Jap to the fact that there's something
doing, and he's digging in and has begun, the last day or two, to
speak up in class and suggest things himself. Since I've been
studying him and watching him, I have come to the conclusion that
he is much older than I am. Something he said in class yesterday
made me think he had probably had the best schooling Japan could
give him before he came here. The next time you meet him look
for a suspicion of gray hairs around his ears. He's too blamed
comprehensive for the average boy of my age. You said the Japs
were the best imitators in the world and I have an idea in the
back of my head that before I get through with him, Oka Sayye is
going to prove your proposition."
Linda nodded as she shot the Bear Cat across the streetcar tracks
and headed toward the desert. The engine was purring softly as
it warmed up. The car was running smoothly. The sun of early
morning was shining on them through bracing, salt, cool air, and
even in the valley the larks were busy, and the mockingbirds, and
from every wayside bush the rosy finches were singing. All the
world was coming to the exquisite bloom of a half-tropical
country. Up from earth swept the heavy odors of blooming citrus
orchards, millions of roses, and the overpowering sweetness of
gardens and cultivated flowers; while down from the mountains
rolled the delicate breath of the misty blue lilac, the pungent
odor of California sage, and the spicy sweet of the lemonade
bush. They were two young things, free for the day, flying down
a perfect road, adventuring with Providence. They had only gone
a few miles when Donald Whiting took off his hat, stuffed it down
beside him, and threw back his head, shaking his hair to the wind
in a gesture so soon to become familiar to Linda. She glanced
across at him and found him looking at her. A smile broke over
her lips. One of her most spontaneous laughs bubbled up in her
throat.
"Topping, isn't it!" she cried gaily.
"It's the best thing that ever happened to me," answered Donald
Whiting instantly. "Our car is a mighty good one and Dad isn't
mean about letting me drive it. I can take it frequently and can
have plenty of gas and take my crowd; but lordy, I don't believe
there's a boy or girl living that doesn't just positively groan
when they see one of these little gray Bear Cats go loping past.
And I never even had a ride in one before. I can't get over the
fact that it's yours. It wouldn't seem so funny if it belonged
to one of the fellows."
With steady hand and gradually increasing speed, Linda put the
Bear Cat over the roads of early morning. Sometimes she stopped
in the shade of pepper, eucalyptus, or palm, where the larks were
specializing in their age-old offertory. And then again they
went racing until they reached the real desert. Linda ran the
car under the shade of a tall clump of bloom-whitened alders.
She took off her hat, loosened the hair at her temples, and
looked out across the long morning stretch of desert.
"It's just beginning to be good," she said. She began pointing
with her slender hand. "That gleam you see over there is the
gold of a small clump of early poppies. The purple beyond it is
lupin. All these exquisite colors on the floor are birds'-eyes
and baby blue eyes, and the misty white here and there is
forget-me-not. It won't be long til thousands and thousands of
yucca plants will light their torches all over the desert and all
the alders show their lacy mist. Of course you know how
exquisitely the Spaniards named the yucca 'Our Lord's Candles.'
Isn't that the prettiest name for a flower, and isn't it the
prettiest thought?"
"It certainly is," answered Donald.
"Had any experience with the desert?" Linda asked lightly.
"Hunted sage hens some," answered Donald.
"Oh, well, that'll be all right," said Linda. "I wondered if
you'd go murdering yourself like a tenderfoot."
"What's the use of all this artillery?" inquired Donald as he
stepped from the car.
"Better put on your hat. You're taller than most of the bushes;
you'll find slight shade," cautioned Linda. "The use is purely a
matter of self-protection. The desert has got such a devil of a
fight for existence, without shade and practically without water,
that it can't afford to take any other chance of extermination,
and so it protects itself with needles here and spears there and
sabers at other places and roots that strike down to China
everywhere. First thing we are going to get is some soap."
"Great hat!" exclaimed Donald. "If you wanted soap why didn't
you bring some?"
"For all you know," laughed Linda, "I may be going to education
you up a little. Dare you to tell me how many kinds of soap I
can find today that the Indians used, and where I can find it."
"Couldn't tell you one to save my life," said Donald.
"And born and reared within a few miles of the desert!" scoffed
Linda. "Nice Indian you'd make. We take our choice today
between finding deer-brush and digging for amole, because the
mock oranges aren't ripe enough to be nice and soapy yet. I've
got the deer-brush spotted, and we'll pass an amole before we go
very far. Look for a wavy blue-green leaf like a wide blade of
grass and coming up like a lily."
So together they went to the deer-brush and gathered a bunch of
flowers that Linda bound together with some wiry desert grass and
fastened to her belt. It was not long before Donald spied an
amole, and having found one, discovered many others growing near.
Then Linda led the way past thorns and brush, past impenetrable
beds of cholla, until they reached a huge barrel cactus that she
had located with the glasses. Beside this bristling monstrous
growth Linda paused, and reached for the axe, which Donald handed
to her. She drew it lightly across the armor protecting the
plant.
"Short of Victrola needles?" she inquired. "Because if you are,
these make excellent ones. A lot more singing quality to them
than the steel needles, not nearly so metallic."
"Well, I am surely going to try that," said Donald. "Never heard
of such a thing."
Linda chopped off a section of plant. Then she picked one of the
knives from the bucket and handed it to him.
"All right, you get what you want," she said, "while I operate on
the barrel."
She set her feet firmly in the sand, swung the axe, and with a
couple of deft strokes sliced off the top of the huge plant, and
from the heart of it lifted up half a bucketful of the juicy
interior, with her dipper.
"If we didn't have drink, here is where we would get it, and
mighty good it is," she said, pushing down with the dipper until
she formed a small pool in the heart of the plant which rapidly
filled. "Have a taste."
"Jove, that is good!" said Donald. "What are you going to do
with it?"
"Show you later," laughed Linda. "Think I'll take a sip myself."
Then by a roundabout route they started on their return to the
car. Once Linda stopped and gathered a small bunch of an
extremely curious little plant spreading over the ground, a tiny
reddish vine with quaint round leaves that looked as if a drop of
white paint rimmed with maroon had fallen on each of them.
"I never saw that before," said Donald. "What are you going to
do with it?"
"Use it on whichever of us gets the first snake bite," said
Linda. "That is rattlesnake weed and if a poisonous snake bites
you, score each side of the wound with the cleanest, sharpest
knife you have and then bruise the plant and bind it on with your
handkerchief, and forget it."
"Is that what you do?" inquired Donald.
"Why sure," said Linda, "that is what I would do if a snake were
so ungallant as to bite me, but there doesn't seem to be much of
the antagonistic element in my nature. I don't go through the
desert exhaling the odor of fright, and so snakes lie quiescent
or slip away so silently that I never see them."
"Now what on earth do you mean by that?" inquired Donald.
"Why that is the very first lesson Daddy ever taught me when he
took me to the mountains and the desert. If you are afraid, your
system throws off formic acid, and the animals need only the
suspicion of a scent of it to make them ready to fight. Any
animal you encounter or even a bee, recognizes it. One of the
first things that I remember about Daddy was seeing him sit on
the running board of the runabout buckling up his desert boots
while he sang to me,
'Let not your heart be troubled Neither let it be afraid,'
as he got ready to take me on his back and go into the desert for
our first lesson; he told me that a man was perfectly safe in
going to the forest or the desert or anywhere he chose among any
kind of animals if he had sufficient self-control that no odor of
fear emanated from him. He said that a man was safe to make his
way anywhere he wanted to go, if he started his journey by
recognizing a blood brotherhood with anything living he would
meet on the way; and I have heard Enos Mills say that when he was
snow inspector of Colorado he traveled the crest of the Rockies
from one end of the state to the other without a gun or any means
of self-defense."
"Now, that is something new to think about," said Donald.
"And it's something that is very true," said Linda. "I have seen
it work times without number. Father and I went quietly up the
mountains, through the canyons, across the desert, and we would
never see a snake of any kind, but repeatedly we would see men
with guns and dogs out to kill, to trespass on the rights of the
wild, and they would be hunting for sticks and clubs and firing
their guns where we had passed never thinking of lurking danger.
If you start out in accord, at one with Nature, you're quite as
safe as you are at home, sometimes more so. But if you start out
to stir up a fight, the occasion is very rare on which you can't
succeed."
"And that reminds me," said Donald, with a laugh, "that a week
ago I came to start a fight with you. What has become of that
fight we were going to have, anyway?"
"You can search me," laughed Linda, throwing out her hands in a
graceful gesture. "There's not a scrap of fight in my system
concerning you, but if Oka Sayye were having a fight with you and
I were anywhere around, you'd have one friend who would help you
to handle the Jap."
Donald looked at Linda thoughtfully.
"By the great hocus-pocus," he said, "you know, I believe you.
If two fellows were having a pitched battle most of the girls I
know would quietly faint or run, but I do believe that you would
stand by and help a fellow if he needed it."
"That I surely would," said Linda; "but don't you say 'most of
the girls I know' and then make a statement like that concerning
girls, because you prove that you don't know them at all. A few
years ago, I very distinctly recall how angry many women were at
this line in one of Kipling's poems:
The female of the species is more deadly than the male,
and there was nothing to it save that a great poet was trying to
pay womanhood everywhere the finest compliment he knew how. He
always has been fundamental in his process of thought. He gets
right back to the heart of primal things. When he wrote that
line he was not really thinking that there was a nasty poison in
the heart of a woman or death in her hands. What he was thinking
was that in the jungle the female lion or tiger or jaguar must go
and find a particularly secluded cave and bear her young and
raise them to be quite active kittens before she leads them out,
because there is danger of the bloodthirsty father eating them
when they are tiny and helpless. And if perchance a male finds
the cave of his mate and her tiny young and enters it to do
mischief, then there is no recorded instance I know of in which
the female, fighting in defense of her young, has not been 'more
deadly than the male.' And that is the origin of the
much-discussed line concerning the female of the species, and it
holds good fairly well down the line of the wild. It's even true
among such tiny things as guinea pigs and canary birds. There is
a mother element in the heart of every girl. Daddy used to say
that half the women in the world married the men they did because
they wanted to mother them. You can't tell what is in a woman's
heart by looking at her. You must bring her face to face with an
emergency before you can say what she'll do, but I would be
perfectly willing to stake my life on this: There is scarcely a
girl you know who would see you getting the worst of a fight, say
with Oka Sayye, or someone who meant to kill you or injure you,
who would not pick up the first weapon she could lay her hands
on, whether it was an axe or a stick or a stone, and go to your
defense, and if she had nothing else to fight with, I have heard
of women who put up rather a tidy battle with their claws.
Sounds primitive, doesn't it?"
"It sounds true," said Donald reflectively. "I see, young lady,
where one is going to have to measure his words and think before
he talks to you."
"Pretty thought!" said Linda lightly. "We'll have a great time
if you must stop to consider every word before you say it."
"Well, anyway," said Donald, "when are we going to have that
fight which was the purpose of our coming together?"
"Why, we're not ever going to have it," answered Linda. "I have
got nothing in this world to fight with you about since you're
doing your level best to beat Oka Sayye. I have watched your
head above the remainder of your class for three years and wanted
to fight with you on that point."
"Now that's a queer thing," said Donald, "because I have watched
you for three years and wanted to fight with you about your
drygoods, and now since I've known you only such a short while, I
don't care two whoops what you wear. It's a matter of perfect
indifference to me. You can wear French heels or baby pumps, or
go barefoot. You would still be you."
"Is it a truce?" asked Linda. I
"No, ma'am," said Donald, "it's not a truce. That implies war
and we haven't fought. It's not armed neutrality; it's not even
watchful waiting. It's my friend, Linda Strong. Me for her and
her for me, if you say so."
He reached out his hand. Linda laid hers in it, and looking into
his eyes, she said: "That is a compact. We'll test this
friendship business and see what there is to it. Now come on;
let's run for the canyon."
It was only a short time until the Bear Cat followed its trail of
the previous Saturday, and, rushing across the stream, stopped at
its former resting place, while Linda and Donald sat looking at
the sheer-walled little room before them.
"I can see," said Linda, "a stronger tinge in the green. There
are more flowers in the carpet. There is more melody in the
birds' song. We are going to have a better time than we had last
Saturday. First let's fix up our old furnace, because we must
have a fire today."
So they left the car, and under Linda's direction they
reconstructed the old fireplace at which the girl and her father
had cooked when botanizing in Multiflores. In a corner secluded
from wind, using the wall of the canyon for a back wall, big
boulders the right distance apart on each side, and small stones
for chinking, Linda superintended the rebuilding of the
fireplace.
She unpacked the lunch box, set the table, and when she had
everything in readiness she covered the table, and taking a
package, she carried it on a couple of aluminium pie pans to
where her fire was burning crisply. With a small field axe she
chopped a couple of small green branches, pointed them to her
liking, and peeled them. Then she made a poker from one of the
saplings they had used to move the rocks, and beat down her fire
until she had a bright bed of deep coals. When these were
arranged exactly to her satisfaction, she pulled some sprays of
deer weed bloom from her bundle and, going down to the creek,
made a lather and carefully washed her hands, tucking the towel
she used in drying them through her belt. Then she came back to
the fire and, sitting down beside it, opened the package and
began her operations. On the long, slender sticks she strung a
piece of tenderloin beef, about three inches in circumference and
one fourth of an inch in thickness, then half a slice of bacon,
and then a slice of onion. This she repeated until her skewer
would bear no more weight. Then she laid it across the rocks
walling her fire, occasionally turning it while she filled the
second skewer. Then she brought from the car the bucket of pulp
she had taken from the barrel cactus, transferred it to a piece
of cheesecloth and deftly extracted the juice. To this she added
the contents of a thermos bottle containing a pint of sugar that
had been brought to the boiling point with a pint of water and
poured over some chopped spearmint to which had been added the
juice of half a dozen lemons and three or four oranges. From a
small, metal-lined compartment, Linda took a chunk of ice and
dropped it into this mixture.
She was sitting on the ground, one foot doubled under her, the
other extended. She had taken off her hat; the wind and the
bushes had roughened her hair. Exercise had brought deep red to
her cheeks and her lips. Happiness had brought a mellow glow to
her dark eyes. She had turned back her sleeves, and her slender
hands were fascinatingly graceful in their deft handling of
everything she touched. They were a second edition of the hands
with which Alexander Strong had felt out defective nerve systems
and made delicate muscular adjustments. She was wholly absorbed
in what she was doing. Sitting on the blanket across from her
Donald Whiting was wholly absorbed in her and he was thinking.
He was planning how he could please her, how he could earn her
friendship. He was admitting to himself that he had very little,
if anything, to show for hours of time that he had spent in
dancing, at card games, beach picnics, and races. All these
things had been amusing. But he had nothing to show for the time
he had spent or the money he had wasted. Nothing had happened
that in any way equipped him for his battle with Oka Sayye.
Conversely, this girl, whom he had resented, whom he had
criticized, who had claimed his notice only by her radical
difference from the other girls, had managed, during the few
minutes he had first talked with her in the hall, to wound his
pride, to spur his ambition, to start him on a course that must
end in lasting and material benefit to him even if he failed in
making a higher record of scholarship than Oka Sayye. It was
very certain that the exercise he was giving his brain must be
beneficial. He had learned many things that were intensely
interesting to him and he had not even touched the surface of
what he could see that she had been taught by her father or had
learned through experience and personal investigation. She had
been coming to the mountains and the canyons alone, for four
years doing by herself what she would have done under her
father's supervision had he lived. That argued for steadfastness
and strength of character. She would not utter one word of
flattery. She would say nothing she did not mean. Watching her
intently, Donald Whiting thought of all these things. He thought
of what she had said about fighting for him, and he wondered if
it really was true that any girl he knew would fight for him. He
hardly believed it when he remembered some of his friends, so
entirely devoted to personal adornment and personal
gratification. But Linda had said that all women were alike in
their hearts. She knew about other things. She must know about
this. Maybe all women would fight for their young or for their
men, but he knew of no other girl who could drive a Bear Cat with
the precision and skill with which Linda drove. He knew no other
girl who was master of the secrets of the desert and the canyons
and the mountains. Certainly he knew no other girl who would tug
at great boulders and build a fireplace and risk burning her
fingers and scorching her face to prepare a meal for him. So he
watched Linda and so he thought.
At first he thought she was the finest pal a boy ever had, and
then he thought how he meant to work to earn and keep her
friendship; and then, as the fire reddened Linda's cheeks and she
made running comments while she deftly turned her skewers of
brigand beefsteak, food that half the Boy Scouts in the country
had been eating for four years, there came an idea with which he
dallied until it grew into a luring vision.
"Linda," he asked suddenly, "do you know that one of these days
you're going to be a beautiful woman?"
Linda turned her skewers with intense absorption. At first he
almost thought she had not heard him, but at last she said
quietly: "Do you really think that is possible, Donald?"
"You're lovely right now !" answered the boy promptly.
"For goodness' sake, have an eye single to your record for truth
and veracity," said Linda. "Doesn't this begin to smell zippy?"
"It certainly does," said Donald. "It's making me ravenous. But
honest, Linda, you are a pretty girl."
"Honest, your foot!" said Linda scornfully. "I am not a pretty
girl. I am lean and bony and I've got a beak where I should have
a nose. Speaking of pretty girls, my sister, Eileen, is a pretty
girl. She is a downright beautiful girl."
"Yes," said Donald, "she is, but she can't hold a candle to you.
How did she look when she was your age?"
"I can't remember Eileen," said Linda, "when she was not
exquisitely dressed and thinking more about taking care of her
shoes than anything else in the world. I can't remember her when
she was not curled, and even when she was a tiny thing Mother put
a dust of powder on her nose. She said her skin was so delicate
that it could not bear the sun. She never could run or play or
motor much or do anything, because she has always had to be saved
for the sole purpose of being exquisitely beautiful. Talk about
lilies of the field, that's what Eileen is! She is an improvement
on the original lily of the field--she's a lily of the drawing
room. Me, now, I'm more of a Joshua tree."
Donald Whiting laughed, as Linda intended that he should.
A minute afterward she slid the savory food from a skewer upon
one of the pie pans, tossed back the cover from the little table,
stacked some bread-and-butter sandwiches beside the meat and
handed the pan to Donald.
"Fall to," she said, "and prove that you're a man with an
appreciative tummy. Father used to be positively ravenous for
this stuff. I like it myself."
She slid the food from the second skewer to a pan for herself,
settled the fire to her satisfaction and they began their meal.
Presently she filled a cup from the bucket beside her and handed
it to Donald. At the same time she lifted another for herself.
"Here's to the barrel cactus," she said. "May the desert grow
enough of them so that we'll never lack one when we want to have
a Saturday picnic."
Laughingly they drank this toast; and the skewers were filled a
second time. When they could eat no more they packed away the
lunch things, buried the fire, took the axe and the field
glasses, and started on a trip of exploration down the canyon.
Together they admired delicate and exquisite ferns growing around
great gray boulders. Donald tasted hunters' rock leek, and
learned that any he found while on a hunting expedition would
furnish a splendid substitute for water. Linda told him of rare
flowers she lacked and what they were like and how he would be
able to identify what she wanted in case he should ever find any
when he was out hunting or with his other friends. They peeped
into the nesting places of canyon wrens and doves and finches,
and listened to the exquisite courting songs of the birds whose
hearts were almost bursting with the exuberance of spring and the
joy of home making. When they were tired out they went back to
the dining room and after resting a time, they made a supper from
the remnants of their dinner. When they were seated in the car
and Linda's hand was on the steering wheel, Donald reached across
and covered it with his own.
"Wait a bit," he said. "Before we leave here I want to ask you a
question and I want you to make me a promise."
"All right," said Linda. "What's your question?"
"What is there," said Donald, "that I can do that would give you
such pleasure as you have given me?"
Linda could jest on occasions, but by nature she was a serious
person. She looked at Donald reflectively.
"Why, I think," she said at last, "that having a friend, having
someone who understands and who cares for the things I do, and
who likes to go to the same places and to do the same things, is
the biggest thing that has happened to me since I lost my father.
I don't see that you are in any way in my debt, Donald."
"All right then," said the boy, "that brings me to the promise I
want you to make me. May we always have our Saturdays together
like this?"
"Sure!" said Linda, "I would be mightily pleased. I'll have to
work later at night and scheme, maybe. By good rights Saturday
belongs to me anyway because I am born Saturday's child."
"Well, hurrah for Saturday! It always was a grand old day," said
Donald, "and since I see what it can do in turning out a girl
like you, I've got a better opinion of it than ever. We'll call
that settled. I'll always ask you on Friday at what hour to
come, and hereafter Saturday is ours."
"Ours it is," said Linda.
Then she put the Bear Cat through the creek and on the road and,
driving swiftly as she dared, ran to Lilac Valley and up to Peter
Morrison's location.
She was amazed at the amount of work that had been accomplished.
The garage was finished. Peter's temporary work desk and his cot
were in it. A number of his personal belongings were there. The
site for his house had been selected and the cellar was being
excavated.
Linda descended from the Bear Cat and led Donald before Peter.
"Since you're both my friends," she said, "I want you to know
each other. This is Donald Whiting, the Senior I told you about,
Mr. Morrison. You know you said you would help him if you
could."
"Certainly," said Peter. "I am very glad to know any friend of
yours, Miss Linda. Come over to my workroom and let's hear about
this."
"Oh, go and talk it over between yourselves," said Linda. "I am
going up here to have a private conversation with the spring. I
want it to tell me confidentially exactly the course it would
enjoy running so that when your house is finished and I come to
lay out your grounds I will know exactly how it feels about
making a change."
"Fine!" said Peter. "Take your time and become extremely
confidential, because the more I look at the location and the
more I hear the gay chuckling song that that water sings, the
more I am in love with your plan to run it across the lawn and
bring it around the boulder."
"It would be a downright sin not to have that water in a
convenient place for your children to play in, Peter," said
Linda.
"Then that's all settled," said Peter. "Now, Whiting, come this
way and we'll see whether I can suggest anything that will help
you with your problem."
"Whistle when you are ready, Donald," called Linda as she turned
away.
Peter Morrison glanced after her a second, and then he led Donald
Whiting to a nail keg in the garage and impaled that youngster on
the mental point of a mental pin and studied him as carefully as
any scientist ever studied a rare specimen. When finally he let
him go, his mental comment was: "He's a mighty fine kid. Linda
is perfectly safe with him."
CHAPTER XV. Linda's Hearthstone
Early the following week Linda came from school one evening to
find a load of sand and a heap of curiously marked stones beside
the back door.
"Can it possibly be, Katy," she asked, "that those men are
planning to begin work on my room so soon? I am scared out of
almost seven of my five senses. I had no idea they would be
ready to begin work until after I had my settlement with Eileen
or was paid for the books."
"Don't ye be worried," said Katy. "There's more in me stocking
than me leg, and you're as welcome to it as the desert is welcome
to rain, an' nadin' it 'most as bad."
"Anyway," said Linda, "it will surely take them long enough so
that I can pay by the time they finish."
But Linda was not figuring that back of the projected
improvements stood two men, each of whom had an extremely
personal reason for greatly desiring to please her. Peter
Morrison had secured a slab of sandstone. He had located a
marble cutter to whom he meant to carry it, and was spending much
thought that he might have been using on an article in trying to
hit upon exactly the right line or phrase to build in above
Linda's fire--something that would convey to her in a few words a
sense of friendship and beauty.
While Peter gazed at the unresponsive gray sandstone and wrote
line after line which he immediately destroyed, Henry Anderson
explored the mountain and came in, red faced and perspiring, from
miles of climbing with a bright stone in each hand, or took the
car to bring in small heaps too heavy to carry that he had
collected near the roads. They were two men striving for the
favor of the same girl. How Linda would have been amused had she
understood the situation, or how Eileen would have been provoked,
neither of the men knew nor did they care.
The workmen came after Linda left and went before her return.
Having been cautioned to silence, Katy had not told her when work
actually began; and so it happened that, going to her room one
evening, she unlocked the door and stepped inside to face the
completed fireplace. The firebox was not very large but ample.
The hearthstone was a big sheet of smooth gray sandstone. The
sides and top were Henry's collection of brilliant boulders,
carefully and artistically laid in blue mortar, and over the
firebox was set Peter's slab of gray sandstone. On it were four
deeply carved lines. The quaint Old English lettering was filled
even to the surface with a red mortar, while the capitals were
done in dull blue. The girl slowly read:
Voiceless stones, with Flame-tongues Preach Sermons struck
from Nature's Lyre; Notes of Love and Trust and Hope Hourly
sing in Linda's Fire.
In the firebox stood a squat pair of black andirons, showing age
and usage. A rough eucalyptus log waited across them while the
shavings from the placing of the mantel and the cutting of the
windows were tucked beneath it. Linda stood absorbed a minute.
She looked at the skylight, flooding the room with the light she
so needed coming from the right angle. She went over to the new
window that gave her a view of the length of the valley she loved
and a most essential draft. When she turned back to the
fireplace her hands were trembling.
"Now isn't that too lovely of them?" she said softly. "Isn't
that altogether wonderful? How I wish Daddy were here to sit
beside my fire and share with me the work I hope to do here."
In order to come as close to him as possible she did the next
best thing. She sat down at her table and wrote a long letter to
Marian, telling her everything she could think of that would
interest her. Then she re-read with extreme care the letter she
had found at the Post Office that day in reply to the one she had
written Marian purporting to come from an admirer. Writing
slowly and thinking deeply, she answered it. She tried to
imagine that she was Peter Morrison and she tried to say the
things in that letter that she thought Peter would say in the
circumstances, because she felt sure that Marian would be
entertained by such things as Peter would say. When she
finished, she read it over carefully, and then copied it with
equal care on the typewriter, which she had removed to her
workroom.
When she heard Katy's footstep outside her door, she opened it
and drew her in, slipping the bolt behind her. She led her to
the fireplace and recited the lines.
"Now ain't they jist the finest gentlemen?" said Katy. "Cut
right off of a piece of the same cloth as your father. Now some
way we must get together enough money to get ye a good-sized rug
for under your worktable, and then ye've got to have two bits of
small ones, one for your hearthstone and one for your aisel; and
then ye're ready, colleen, to show what ye can do. I'm so proud
of ye when I think of the grand secret it's keepin' for ye I am;
and less and less are gettin' me chances for the salvation of me
soul, for every night I'm a-sittin' starin' at the magazines ye
gave me when I ought to be tellin' me beads and makin' me
devotions. Ain't it about time the third was comin' in?"
"Any day now," said Linda in a whisper. "And, Katy, you'll be
careful? That editor must think that 'Jane Meredith' is full of
years and ripe experience. I probably wouldn't get ten cents, no
not even a for-nothing chance, if he knew those articles were
written by a Junior."
"Junior nothing!" scoffed Katy. "There was not a day of his life
that your pa did not spend hours drillin' ye in things the rest
of the girls in your school never heard of. 'Tain't no
high-school girl that's written them articles. It's Alexander
Strong speakin' through the medium of his own flesh and blood."
"Why, so it is, Katy!" cried Linda delightedly. "You know, I
never thought of that. I have been so egoistical I thought I was
doing them myself."
"Paid ye anything yet?" queried Katy.
"No," said Linda, "they haven't. It seems that the amount of
interest the articles evoke is going to decide what I am to be
paid for them, but they certainly couldn't take the recipe and
the comments and the sketch for less than twenty-five or thirty
dollars, unless recipes are like poetry. Peter said the other
day that if a poet did not have some other profession to support
him, he would starve to death on all he was paid for writing the
most beautiful things that ever are written in all this world.
Peter says even an effort to write a poem is a beautiful thing."
"Well, maybe that used to be the truth," said Katy as she started
toward the door, "but I have been reading some things labeled
'poetry' in the magazines of late, and if the holy father knows
what they mean, he's even bigger than ever I took him to be."
"Katy," said Linda, "we are dreadful back numbers. We are
letting this world progress and roll right on past us without a
struggle. We haven't either one been to a psychoanalyst to find
out the color of our auras."
"Now God forbid," said Katy. "I ain't going to have one of them
things around me. The colors I'm wearin' satisfy me entoirely."
"And mine are going to satisfy me very shortly, now," laughed
Linda, "because tomorrow is my big day with Eileen. Next time we
have a minute together, old dear, I'll have started my bank
account."
"Right ye are," said Katy, "jist exactly right. You're getting
such a great girl it's the proper thing ye should be suitably
dressed, and don't ye be too modest."
"The unfortunate thing about that, Katy, is that l intimated the
other day that I would be content with less than half, since she
is older and she should have her chance first."
"Now ain't that jist like ye?" said Katy. "I might have known ye
would be doing that very thing."
"After I have gone over the accounts," said Linda, "I'll know
better what to demand. Now fly to your cooking, Katy, and let me
sit down at this table and see if I can dig out a few dollars of
honest coin; but I'm going to have hard work to keep my eves on
the paper with that fireplace before me. Isn't that red and blue
lettering the prettiest thing, Katy, and do you notice that tiny
'P. M.' cut down in the lower left-hand corner nearly out of
sight? That, Katy, stands for 'Peter Morrison,' and one of these
days Peter is going to be a large figure on the landscape. The
next Post he has an article in I'll buy for you."
"It never does," said Katy, "to be makin' up your mind in this
world so hard and fast that ye can't change it. In the days
before John Gilman got bewitched out of his senses I did think,
barrin' your father, that he was the finest man the Lord ever
made; but I ain't thought so much of him of late as I did
before."
"Same holds good for me," said Linda.
"I've studied this Peter," continued Katy, "like your pa used to
study things under his microscope. He's the most come-at-able
man. He's got such a kind of a questionin' look on his face, and
there's a bit of a stoop to his shoulders like they had been
whittled out for carryin' a load, and there's a kind of a whimsy
quiverin' around his lips that makes me heart stand still every
time he speaks to me, because I can't be certain whether he is
going to make me laugh or going to make me cry, and when what
he's sayin' does come with that little slow drawl, I can't be
just sure whether he's meanin' it or whether he's jist pokin' fun
at me. He said the quarest thing to me the other day when he was
here fiddlin' over the makin' of this fireplace. He was standin'
out beside your desert garden and I come aven with him and I says
to him: 'Them's the rare plants Miss Linda and her pa have been
goin' to the deserts and the canyons, as long as he lived, to
fetch in; and then Miss Linda went alone, and now the son of
Judge Whiting, the biggest lawyer in Los Angeles, has begun goin'
with her. Ain't it the brightest, prettiest place?' I says to
him. And he stood there lookin', and he says to me: 'No, Katy,
that is a graveyard.' Now what in the name of raison was the man
meanin' by that?"
Linda stared at the hearth motto reflectively.
"A graveyard!" she repeated. "Well, if anything could come
farther from a graveyard than that spot, I don't know how it
would do it. I haven't the remotest notion what he meant. Why
didn't you ask him?"
"Well, the truth is," said Katy, "that I proide myself on being
able to kape me mouth shut when I should."
"I'll leave to think over it," said Linda. "At present I have no
more idea than you in what respect my desert garden could
resemble a graveyard. Oh! yes, there's one thing I wanted to ask
you, Katy. Has Eileen been around while this room was being
altered?"
"She came in yesterday," answered Katy, "when the hammerin' and
sawin' was goin' full blast."
"What I wanted to find out'" said Linda, "was whether she had
been here and seen this room or not, because if she hasn't and
she wants to see it, now is her time. After I get things going
here and these walls are covered with drying sketches this room
is going to be strictly private. You see that you keep your key
where nobody gets hold of it."
"It's on a string round me neck this blessed minute," said Katy.
"I didn't see her come up here, but ye could be safe in bettin'
anything ye've got that she came."
"Yes, I imagine she did," said Linda. "She would be sufficiently
curious that she would come to learn how much I have spent if she
had no other interest in me."
She looked at the fireplace reflectively.
"I wonder," she said, "what Eileen thought of that and I wonder
if she noticed that little 'P. M.' tucked away down there in the
corner."
"Sure she did," said Katy. "She has got eyes like a cat. She
can see more things in a shorter time than anybody I ever knew."
So that evening at dinner Linda told Eileen that the improvements
she had made for her convenience in the billiard room were
finished, and asked her if she would like to see them.
"I can't imagine what you want to stick yourself off up there
alone for," said Eileen. "I don't believe I am sufficiently
interested in garret skylights and windows to climb up to look at
them. What everybody in the neighborhood can see is that you
have absolutely ruined the looks of the back part of the house."
"Good gracious!" said Linda. "Have I? You know I never thought
of that."
"Of course! But all you've got to do is go on the cast lawn and
take a look at that side and the back end of the house to see
what you have done," said Eileen. "Undoubtedly you've cut the
selling price of the house one thousand, at least. But it's
exactly like you not to have thought of what chopping up the roof
and the end of the house as you have done, would make it look
like. You have got one of those single-track minds, Linda, that
can think of only one thing at a time, and you never do think,
when you start anything, of what the end is going to be."
"Very likely there's a large amount of truth in that," said Linda
soberly. "Perhaps I do get an idea and pursue it to the
exclusion of everything else. It's an inheritance from Daddy,
this concentrating with all my might on one thing at a time. But
I am very sorry if I have disfigured the house."
"What I want to know," said Eileen, "is how in this world, at
present wages and cost of material, you're expecting to pay men
for the work you have had done."
"I can talk more understandingly about that," said Linda quietly,
"day after tomorrow. I'll get home from school tomorrow as early
as I can, and then we'll figure out our financial situation
exactly."
Eileen made no reply.
CHAPTER XVI. Producing the Evidence
When Linda hurried home the next evening, her first word to Katy
was to ask if Eileen were there.
"No, she isn't here," said Katy, "and she's not going to be."
"Not going to be!" cried Linda, her face paling perceptibly.
"She went downtown this morning and she telephoned me about three
sayin' she had an invoitation to go with a motor party to
Pasadena this afternoon, an' she wasn't knowin' whether she could
get home the night or not."
"I don't like it," said Linda. "I don't like it at all."
She liked it still less when Eileen came home for a change of
clothing the following day, and again went to spend the night
with a friend, without leaving any word whatever.
"I don't understand this," said Linda, white lipped and tense.
"She does not want to see me. She does not intend to talk
business with me if she can possibly help it. She is treating me
as if I were a four-year-old instead of a woman with as much
brain as she has. If she appears while I am gone tomorrow and
starts away again, you tell her Come to think of it, you needn't
tell her anything; I'll give you a note for her."
So Linda sat down and wrote:
DEAR EILEEN:
It won't be necessary to remind you of our agreement night before
last to settle on an allowance from Father's estate for me. Of
course I realize that you are purposely avoiding seeing me, for
what reason I can't imagine; but I give you warning, that if you
have been in this house and have read this note, and are not here
with your figures ready to meet me when I get home tomorrow
night, I'll take matters into my own hands, and do exactly what I
think best without the slightest reference to what you think
about it. If you don't want something done that you will
dislike, even more than you dislike seeing me, you had better
heed this warning.
LINDA.
She read it over slowly: "My, that sounds melodramatic!" she
commented. "It's even got a threat in it, and it's a funny thing
to threaten my own sister. I don't think that it's a situation
that occurs very frequently, but for that matter I sincerely hope
that Eileen isn't the kind of sister that occurs frequently."
Linda went up to her room and tried to settle herself to work,
but found that it was impossible to fix her attention on what she
was doing. Her mind jumped from one thing to another in a way
that totally prohibited effective work of any kind. A sudden
resolve came into her heart. She would not wait any longer. She
would know for herself just how she was situated financially.
She wrote a note to the editor of Everybody's Home, asking him if
it would be convenient to let her know what reception her work
was having with his subscribers, whether he desired her to
continue the department in his magazines, and if so, what was the
best offer he could make her for the recipes, the natural history
comments accompanying them, and the sketches. Then she went down
to the telephone book and looked up the location of the
Consolidated Bank. She decided that she would stop there on her
way from school the next day and ask to be shown the Strong
accounts.
While she was meditating these heroic measures the bell rang and
Katy admitted John Gilman. Strangely enough, he was asking for
Linda, not for Eileen. At the first glimpse of him Linda knew
that something was wrong; so without any prelude she said
abruptly: "What's the matter, John? Don't you know where I
Eileen is either?"
"Approximately," he answered. "She has 'phoned me two or three
times, but I haven't seen her for three days. Do you know where
she is or exactly why she is keeping away from home as she is?"
"Yes," said Linda, "I do. I told you the other day the time had
come when I was going to demand a settlement of Father's estate
and a fixed income. That time came three days ago and I have not
seen Eileen since."
They entered the living room. As Linda passed the table, propped
against a candlestick on it, she noticed a note addressed to
herself.
"Oh, here will be an explanation," she said. "Here is a note for
me. Sit down a minute till I read it."
She seated herself on the arm of a chair, tore open the note, and
instantly began reading aloud.
"Dear little sister--"
"Pathetic," interpolated Linda, "in consideration of the fact
that I am about twice as big as she is. However, we'll let that
go, and focus on the enclosure." She waved a slender slip of
paper at Gilman. "I never was possessed of an article like this
before in all my tender young life, but it seems to me that it's
a cheque, and I can't tell you quite how deeply it amuses me.
But to return to business, at the present instant I am:
DEAR LITTLE SISTER:
It seems that all the friends I have are particularly insistent
on seeing me all at once and all in a rush. I don't think I ever
had quite so many invitations at one time in my life before, and
the next two or three days seem to be going to be equally as
full. But I took time to run into the bank and go over things
carefully. I find that after the payment of taxes and insurance
and all the household expenses, that by wearing old clothes I
have and making them over I can afford to turn over at least
seventy-five dollars a month to you for your clothing and
personal expenses. As I don't know exactly when I can get home,
I am enclosing a cheque which is considerably larger than I had
supposed I could make it, and I can only do this by skimping
myself; but of course you are getting such a big girl and
beginning to attract attention, so it is only right that you
should have the very best that I can afford to do for you. I am
not taking the bill from The Mode into consideration. I paid
that with last month's expenses.
With love,
EILEEN.
Linda held the letter in one hand, the cheque in the other, and
stared questioningly at John Gilman.
"What do you think of that?" she inquired tersely.
"It seems to me," said Gilman, "that a more pertinent question
would be, what do you think of it?"
"Rot!" said Linda tersely. "If I were a stenographer in your
office I would think that I was making a fairly good start; but I
happen to be the daughter of Alexander Strong living in my own
home with my only sister, who can afford to flit like the
flittingest of social butterflies from one party to another as
well dressed as, and better dressed than, the Great General
Average. You have known us, John, ever since Eileen sat in the
sun to dry her handmade curls, while I was leaving a piece of my
dress on every busk in Multiflores Canyon. Right here and now I
am going to show you something!"
Linda started upstairs, so John Gilman followed her. She went to
the door of Eileen's suite and opened it.
"Now then," she said, "take a look at what Eileen feels she can
afford for herself. You will observe she has complete and
exquisite furnishings and all sorts of feminine accessories on
her dressing table. You will observe that she has fine rugs in
her dressing room and bathroom. Let me call your attention to
the fact that all these drawers are filled with expensive
comforts and conveniences."
Angrily Linda began to open drawers filled with fancy feminine
apparel, daintily and neatly folded, everything in perfect order:
gloves, hose, handkerchiefs, ribbons, laces, all in separate
compartments She pointed to the high chiffonier, the top
decorated with candlesticks and silver-framed pictures. Here the
drawers revealed heaps of embroidered underclothing and silken
garments. Then she walked to the closet and threw the door wide.
She pushed hangers on their rods, sliding before the perplexed
and bewildered man dress after dress of lace and georgette,
walking suits of cloth, street dresses of silk, and pretty
afternoon gowns, heavy coats, light coats, a beautiful evening
coat. Linda took this down and held it in front of John Gilman.
"I see things marked in store windows," she said. "Eileen paid
not a penny less than three hundred for this one coat. Look at
the rows of shoes, and pumps, and slippers, and what that box is
or I don't know."
Linda slid to the light a box screened by the hanging dresses,
and with the toe of her shoe lifted the lid, disclosing a
complete smoking outfit--case after case of cigarettes. Linda
dropped the lid and shoved the box back. She stood silent a
second, then she looked at John Gilman.
"That is the way things go in this world," she said quietly.
"Whenever you lose your temper, you always do something you
didn't intend to do when you started. I didn't know that, and I
wouldn't have shown it to you purposely if I had known it; but it
doesn't alter the fact that you should know it. If you did know
it no harm's done but if you didn't know it, you shouldn't be
allowed to marry Eileen without knowing as much about her as you
did about Marian, and there was nothing about Marian that you
didn't know. I am sorry for that, but since I have started this
I am going through with it. Now give me just one minute more."
Then she went down the hall, threw open the door to her room, and
walking in said: "You have seen Eileen's surroundings; now take
a look at mine. There's my bed; there's my dresser and toilet
articles; and this is my wardrobe."
She opened the closet door and exhibited a pair of overalls in
which she watered her desert garden. Next ranged her khaki
breeches and felt hat. Then hung the old serge school dress,
beside it the extra skirt and orange blouse. The stack of
underclothing on the shelves was pitifully small, visibly
dilapidated. Two or three outgrown gingham dresses hung
forlornly on the opposite wall. Linda stood tall and straight
before John Gilman.
"What I have on and one other waist constitute my wardrobe," she
said, "and I told Eileen where to get this dress and suggested it
before I got it."
Gilman looked at her in a dazed fashion.
"I don't understand," he said slowly. "If that isn't the dress I
saw Eileen send up for herself, I'm badly mistaken. It was the
Saturday we went to Riverside. It surely is the very dress."
Linda laughed bleakly.
"That may be," she said. "The one time she ever has any respect
for me is in a question of taste. She will agree that I know
when colors are right and a thing is artistic. Now then, John,
you are the administrator of my father's estate; you have seen
what you have seen. What are you going to do about it?"
"Linda," he said quietly, "what my heart might prompt me to do in
consideration of the fact that I am engaged to marry Eileen, and
what my legal sense tells me I must do as executor of your
father's wishes, are different propositions. I am going to do
exactly what you tell me to. What you have shown me, and what
I'd have realized, if I had stopped to think, is neither right
nor just."
Then Linda took her tun at deep thought.
"John," she said at last, "I am feeling depressed over what I
have just done. I am not sure that in losing my temper and
bringing you up here I have played the game fairly. You don't
need to do anything. I'll manage my affairs with Eileen myself.
But I'll tell you before you go, that you needn't practice any
subterfuges. When she reaches the point where she is ready to
come home, I'll tell her that you were here, and what you have
seen. That is the best I can do toward squaring myself with my
own conscience."
Slowly they walked down the ha]l together. At the head of the
stairs Linda took the cheque that she carried and tore it into
bits. Stepping across the hall, she let the little heap slowly
flutter to the rug in front of Eileen's door. Then she went back
to her room and left John Gilman to his own reflections.
CHAPTER XVII. A Rock and a Flame
The first time Linda entered the kitchen after her interview with
Gilman, Katy asked in deep concern, "Now what ye been doing,
lambie?"
"Doing the baby act, Katy," confessed Linda. "Disgracing myself.
Losing my temper. I wish I could bring myself to the place where
I would think half a dozen times before I do a thing once."
"Now look here," said Katy, beginning to bristle, "ain't it the
truth that ye have thought for four years before ye did this
thing once?"
"Quite so," said Linda. "But since I am the daughter of the
finest gentleman I ever knew, I should not do hasty, regrettable
things. On the living-room table I found a note sweeter than
honey, and it contained a cheque for me that wouldn't pay
Eileen's bills for lunches, candy, and theaters for a month; so
in undue heat I reduced it to bits and decorated the rug before
her door. But before that, Katy, I led my guardian into the
room, and showed him everything. I meant to tell him that, since
he had neglected me for four years, he could see that I had
justice now, but when I'd personally conducted him from Eileen's
room to mine, and when I took a good look at him there was
something on his face, Katy, that I couldn't endure. So I told
him to leave it to me; that I would tell Eileen myself what I had
done, and so I will. But I am sorry I did it, Katy; I am awfully
sorry. You always told me to keep my temper and I lost it
completely. From now on I certainly will try to behave myself
more like a woman than a spoiled child. Now give me a dust cloth
and brushes. I am almost through with my job in the library and
I want to finish, because I shall be forced to use the money from
the books to pay for my skylight and fireplace."
Linda went to the library and began work, efficiently, carefully,
yet with a precise rapidity habitual to her. Down the long line
of heavy technical books, she came to the end of the shelf.
Three books from the end she noticed a difference in the wall
behind the shelf. Hastily removing the other two volumes, she
disclosed a small locked door having a scrap of paper protruding
from the edge which she pulled out and upon which she read:
In the event of my passing, should anyone move these books and
find this door, these lines are to inform him that it is to
remain untouched. The key to it is in my safety-deposit vault at
the Consolidated Bank. The Bank will open the door and attend to
the contents of the box at the proper time.
Linda fixed the paper back exactly as she had found it. She
stood looking at the door a long time, then she carefully wiped
it, the wall around it, and the shelf. Going to another shelf,
she picked out the books that had been written by her father and,
beginning at the end of the shelf, she ranged them in a row until
they completely covered the opening. Then she finished filling
the shelf with other books that she meant to keep, but her brain
was working, milling over and over the question of what that
little compartment contained and when it was to be opened and
whether John Gilman knew about it, and whether the Consolidated
Bank would remember the day specified, and whether it would mean
anything important to her.
She carried the dusters back to Katy, and going to her room,
concentrated resolutely upon her work; but she Was unable to do
anything constructive. Her routine lessons she could prepare,
but she could not even sketch a wild rose accurately. Finally
she laid down her pencil, washed her brushes, put away her
material, and locking her door, slipped the key into her pocket.
Going down to the garage she climbed into the Bear Cat and headed
straight for Peter Morrison. She drove into his location and
blew the horn. Peter stepped from the garage, and seeing her,
started in her direction. Linda sprang down and hurried toward
him. He looked at her intently as she approached and formed his
own conclusions.
"Sort of restless," said Linda. "Couldn't evolve a single new
idea with which to enliven the gay annals of English literature
and Greek history. A personal history seems infinitely more
insistent and unusual. I ran away from my lessons, and my work,
and came to you, Peter, because I had a feeling that there was
something you could give me, and I thought you would."
Peter smiled a slow curious smile.
"I like your line of thought, Linda," he said quietly. "It
greatly appeals to me. Any time an ancient and patriarchal
literary man named Peter Morrison can serve as a rock upon which
a young thing can rest, why he'll be glad to be that rock."
"What were you doing?" asked Linda abruptly.
"Come and see," said Peter.
He led the way to the garage. His worktable and the cement floor
around it were littered with sheets of closely typed paper.
"I'll have to assemble them first," said Peter, getting down on
his knees and beginning to pick them up.
Linda sat on a packing case and watched him. Already she felt
comforted. Of course Peter was a rock, of course anyone could
trust him, and of course if the tempest of life beat upon her too
strongly she could always fly to Peter.
"May I?" she inquired, stretching her hand in the direction of a
sheet.
"Sure," said Peter.
"What is it?" inquired Linda lightly. "The bridge or the road or
the playroom?"
"Gad!" he said slowly. "Don't talk about me being a rock! Rocks
are stolid, stodgy unresponsive things. I thought I was
struggling with one of the biggest political problems of the day
from an economic and psychological standpoint. If I'd had sense
enough to realize that it was a bridge I was building, I might
have done the thing with some imagination and subtlety. If you
want a rock and you say I am a rock, a rock I'll be, Linda. But
I know what you are, and what you will be to me when we really
become the kind of friends we are destined to be."
"I wonder now," said Linda, "if you are going to say that I could
be any such lovely thing on the landscape as a bridge."
"No," said Peter slowly, "nothing so prosaic. Bridges are common
in this world. You are going to be something uncommon. History
records the experiences of but one man who has seen a flame in
the open. I am a second Moses and you are going to be my burning
bush. I intended to read this article to you."
Peter massed the sheets, straightened them on the desk, and
deliberately ripped them across several times. Linda sprang to
her feet and stretched out her hands.
"Why, Peter!" she cried in a shocked voice. "That is perfectly
inexcusable. There are hours and hours of work on that, and I
have not a doubt but that it was good work."
"Simple case of mechanism," said Peter, reducing the bits to
smaller size and dropping them into the empty nail keg that
served as his wastebasket. "A lifeless thing without a soul,
mere clockwork. I have got the idea now. I am to build a bridge
and make a road. Every way I look I can see a golden-flame
tongue of inspiration burning. I'll rewrite that thing and
animate it. Take me for a ride, Linda."
Linda rose and walked to the Bear Cat. Peter climbed in and sat
beside her. Linda laid her hands on the steering wheel and
started the car. She ran it down to the highway and chose a
level road leading straight down the valley through cultivated
country. In all the world there was nothing to equal the
panorama that she spread before Peter that evening. She drove
the Bear Cat past orchards, hundreds of acres of orchards of
waxen green leaves and waxen white bloom of orange, grapefruit,
and lemon. She took him where seas of pink outlined peach
orchards, and other seas the more delicate tint of the apricots.
She glided down avenues lined with palm and eucalyptus, pepper
and olive, and through unbroken rows, extending for miles, of
roses, long stretches of white, again a stretch of pink, then
salmon, yellow, and red. Nowhere in all the world are there to
be found so many acres of orchard bloom and so many miles of
tree-lined, rose-decorated roadway as in southern California.
She sent the little car through the evening until she felt that
it was time to go home, and when at last she stopped where they
had started, she realized that neither she nor Peter had spoken
one word. As he stepped from the car she leaned toward him and
reached out her hand.
"Thank you for the fireplace, Peter," she said.
Peter took the hand she extended and held it one minute in both
his own. Then very gently he straightened it out in the palm of
one of his hands and with the other hand turned back the fingers
and laid his lips to the heart of it.
"Thank you, Linda, for the flame," he said, and turning abruptly,
he went toward his workroom.
Stopping for a bite to eat in the kitchen, Linda went back to her
room. She sat down at the table and picking up her pencil, began
to work, and found that she could work. Every stroke came true
and strong. Every idea seemed original and unusual. Quite as
late as a light ever had shone in her window, it shone that
night, the last thing she did being to write another anonymous
letter to Marian, and when she reread it Linda realized that it
was an appealing letter. She thought it certainly would comfort
Marian and surely would make her feel that someone worth while
was interested in her and in her work. She loved some of the
whimsical little touches she had put into it, and she wondered if
she had made it so much like Peter Morrison that it would be
suggestive of him to Marian. She knew that she had no right to
do that and had no such intention. She merely wanted a model to
copy from and Peter seemed the most appealing model at hand.
After school the next day Linda reported that she had finished
going through the books and was ready to have them taken. Then,
after a few minutes of deep thought, she made her way to the
Consolidated Bank. At the window of the paying teller she
explained that she wished to see the person connected with the
bank who had charge of the safety-deposit boxes and who looked
after the accounts pertaining to the estate of Alexander Strong.
The teller recognized the name. He immediately became
deferential.
"I'll take you to the office of the president," he said. "He and
Doctor Strong were very warm friends. You can explain to him
what it is you want to know."
Before she realized what was happening, Linda found herself in an
office that was all mahogany and marble. At a huge desk stacked
with papers sat a man, considerably older than her father. Linda
remembered to have seen him frequently in their home, in her
father's car, and she recalled one fishing expedition to the
Tulare Lake region where he had been a member of her father's
party.
"Of course you have forgotten me, Mr. Worthington," she said as
she approached his desk. "I have grown such a tall person during
the past four years."
The white-haired financier rose and stretched out his hand.
"You exact replica of Alexander Strong," he said laughingly, "I
couldn't forget you any more than I could forget your father.
That fine fishing trip where you proved such a grand little scout
is bright in my memory as one of my happiest vacations. Sit down
and tell me what I can do for you."
Linda sat down and told him that she was dissatisfied with the
manner in which her father's estate was being administered.
He listened very carefully to all she had to say, then he pressed
a button and gave a few words of instruction to the clerk who
answered it. When several ledgers and account books were laid
before him, with practiced hand he turned to what he wanted. The
records were not complicated. They covered a period of four
years. They showed exactly what monies had been paid into the
bank for the estate. They showed what royalties had been paid on
the books. Linda sat beside him and watched his pencil running
up and down columns, setting down a list of items, and making
everything plain. Paid cheques for household expenses I and
drygoods bills were all recorded and deducted. With narrow,
alert eyes, Linda was watching, and her brain was keenly alive.
As she realized the discrepancy between the annual revenue from
the estate and the totaling of the expenses, she had an
inspiration. Something she never before had thought of occurred
to her. She looked the banker in the eye and said very quietly:
"And now, since she is my sister and I am going to be of age very
shortly and these things must all be gone into and opened up,
would it be out of place for me to ask you this afternoon to let
me have a glimpse at the private account of Miss Eileen Strong?"
The banker drew a deep breath and looked at Linda keenly.
"That would not be customary," he said slowly.
"No?" said Linda. "But since Father and Mother went out at the
same time and there was no will and the property would be legally
divided equally between us upon my coming of age, would my sister
be entitled to a private account?"
"Had she any sources of obtaining money outside the estate?"
"No," said Linda. "At least none that I know of. Mother had I
some relatives in San Francisco who were very wealthy people, but
they never came to see us and we never went there. I know
nothing about them. I never had any money from them and I am
quite sure Eileen never had."
Linda sat very quietly a minute and then she looked at the
banker.
"Mr. Worthington," she said, "the situation is slightly peculiar.
My guardian, John Gilman, is engaged to marry my sister Eileen.
She is a beautiful girl, as you no doubt recall, and he is very
much in love with her. Undoubtedly she has been able, at least
recently, to manage affairs very much in her own way. She is
more than four years my senior, and has always had charge of the
household accounts and the handling of the bank accounts. Since
there is such a wide discrepancy between the returns from the
property and the expenses that these books show, I am forced .o
the conclusion that there must be upon your books, or the books
of some other bank in the city, a private account in Eileen's
name or in the name of the Strong estate."
"That I can very easily ascertain," said Mr. Worthington,
reaching again toward the button on his desk. A few minutes
later the report came that there was a private account in the
name of Miss Eileen Strong. Again Linda was deeply thoughtful.
"Is there anything I can do," she inquired, "to prevent that
account from being changed or drawn out previous to my coming of
age?"
Then Mr. Worthington grew thoughtful.
"Yes," he said at last. "If you are dissatisfied, if you feel
that you have reason to believe that money rightfully belonging
to you is being diverted to other channels, you have the right to
issue an injunction against the bank, ordering it not to pay out
any further money on any account nor to honor any cheques drawn
by Miss Strong until the settlement of the estate. Ask your
guardian to execute and deliver such an injunction, or merely ask
him, as your guardian and the administrator of the estate, to
give the bank a written order to that effect."
"But because he is engaged to Eileen, I told him I would not
bring him into this matter," said Linda. "I told him that I
would do what I wanted done, myself."
"Well, how long is it until this coming birthday of yours?"
inquired Mr. Worthington.
"Less than two weeks," answered Linda.
For a time the financier sat in deep thought, then he looked at
Linda. It was a keen, searching look. It went to the depths of
her eyes; it included her face and hair; it included the folds of
her dress, the cut of her shoe, and rested attentively on the
slender hands lying quietly in her lap.
"I see the circumstances very clearly," he said. "I sympathize
with your position. Having known your father and being well
acquainted with your guardian, would you be satisfied if I should
take the responsibility of issuing to the clerks an order not to
allow anything to be drawn from the private account until the
settlement of the estate?"
"Perfectly satisfied," said Linda.
"It might be," said Mr. Worthington, "managing matters i that
way, that no one outside of ourselves need ever know of il Should
your sister not draw on the private account in the mean time, she
would be free to draw household cheques on the monthly income and
if in the settlement of the estate she turns in this private
account or accounts, she need never know of the restriction
concerning this fund."
"Thank you very much," said Linda. "That will fix everything
finely."
On her way to the street car, Linda's brain whirled.
"It's not conceivable," she said, "that Eileen should be
enriching herself at my expense. I can't imagine her being
dishonest in money affairs, and yet I can recall scarcely a
circumstance in life in which Eileen has ever hesitated to be
dishonest when a lie served her purpose better than the truth.
Anyway, matters are safe now."
The next day the books were taken and a cheque for their value
was waiting for Linda when she reached home. She cashed this
cheque and went straight to Peter Morrison for his estimate of
the expenses for the skylight and fireplace. When she asked for
the bill Peter hesitated.
"You wouldn't accept this little addition to your study as a gift
from Henry and me?" he asked lightly. "It would be a great
pleasure to us if you would."
"I could accept stones that Henry Anderson had gathered from the
mountains and canyons, and I could accept a verse carved on
stone, and be delighted with the gift; but I couldn't accept
hours of day labor at the present price of labor, so you will
have to give me the bill, Peter."
Peter did not have the bill, but he had memoranda, and when Linda
paid him she reflected that the current talk concerning the
inflated price of labor was greatly exaggerated.
For two evenings as Linda returned from school and went to her
room she glanced down the hall and smiled at the decoration
remaining on Eileen's rug. The third evening it was gone, so
that she knew Eileen was either in her room or had been there.
She did not meet her sister until dinnertime. She was prepared
to watch Eileen, to study her closely. She was not prepared to
admire her, but in her heart she almost did that very thing.
Eileen had practiced subterfuges so long, she was so
accomplished, that it would have taken an expert to distinguish
reality from subterfuge. She entered the dining room humming a
gay tune. She was carefully dressed and appealingly beautiful.
She blew a kiss to Linda and waved gaily to Katy.
"I was rather afraid," she said lightly, "that I might find you
two in mourning when I got back. I never stayed so long before,
did I? Seemed as if every friend I had made special demand on my
time all at once. Hope you haven't been dull without me."
"Oh, no," said Linda quietly. "Being away at school all day, of
course I wouldn't know whether you were at home or not, and I
have grown so accustomed to spending my evenings alone that I
don't rely on you for entertainment at any time."
"In other words," said Eileen, "it doesn't make any difference to
you where I am."
"Not so far as enjoying your company is concerned," said Linda.
"Otherwise, of course it makes a difference. I hope you had a
happy time."
"Oh, I always have a happy time," answered Eileen lightly. "I
certainly have the best friends."
"That's your good fortune," answered Linda.
At the close of the meal Linda sat waiting. Eileen gave Katy
instructions to have things ready for a midnight lunch for her
and John Gilman and then, humming her tune again, she left the
dining room and went upstairs. Linda stood looking after her.
"Now or never," she said at last. "I have no business to let
her meet John until I have recovered my self-respect. But the
Lord help me to do the thing decently !"
So she followed Eileen up the stairway. She tapped at the door,
and without waiting to hear whether she was invited or not,
opened it and stepped inside. Eileen was sitting before the
window, a big box of candy beside her, a magazine in her fingers.
Evidently she intended to keep her temper in case the coming
interview threatened to become painful.
"I was half expecting you," she said, "you silly hothead. I
found the cheque I wrote you when I got home this afternoon.
That was a foolish thing to do. Why did you tear it up? If it
were too large or if it were not enough why didn't you use it and
ask for another? Because I had to be away that was merely to
leave you something to go on until I got back."
Then Linda did the most disconcerting thing possible. In her
effort at self-control she went too far. She merely folded her
hands in her lap and sat looking straight at Eileen without
saying one word. It did not show much on the surface, but Eileen
really had a conscience, she really had a soul; Linda's eyes,
resting rather speculatively on her, were honest eyes, and Eileen
knew what she knew. She flushed and fidgeted, and at last she
broke out impatiently: "Oh, for goodness' sake, Linda, don't
play 'Patience-on-a-monument.' Speak up and say what it is that
you want. If that cheque was not big enough, what will satisfy
you?"
"Come to think of it," said Linda quietly, "I can get along with
what I have for the short time until the legal settlement of our
interests is due. You needn't bother any more about a cheque."
Eileen was surprised and her face showed it; and she was also
relieved. That too her face showed.
"I always knew," she said lightly, "that I had a little sister
with a remarkably level head and good common sense. I am glad
that you recognize the awful inflation of prices during the war
period, and how I have had to skimp and scheme and save in order
to make ends meet and to keep us going on Papa's meager income."
All Linda's good resolutions vanished. She was under strong
nervous tension. It irritated her to have Eileen constantly
referring to their monetary affairs as if they were practically
paupers, as if their father's life had been a financial failure,
as if he had not been able to realize from achievements
recognized around the world a comfortable living for two women.
"Oh, good Lord!" she said shortly. "Bluff the rest of the world
like a professional, Eileen, but why try it with me? You're
right about my having common sense. I'll admit that I am using
it now. I will be of age in a few days, and then we'll take John
Gilman and go to the Consolidated Bank, and if it suits your
convenience to be absent for four or five days at that period,
I'll take John Gilman and we'll go together."
Eileen was amazed. The receding color in her cheeks left the
rouge on them a ghastly, garish thing.
"Well, I won't do anything of the sort," she said hotly, "and
neither will John Gilman."
"Unfortunately for you," answered Linda, "John Gilman is my
guardian, not yours. He'll be forced to do what the law says he
must, and what common decency tells him he must, no matter what
his personal feelings are; and I might as well tell you that your
absence has done you no good. You'd far better have come home,
as you agreed to, and gone over the books and made me a decent
allowance, because in your absence John came here to ask me where
you were, and I know that he was anxious."
"He came here!" cried Eileen.
"Why, yes," said Linda. "Was it anything unusual? Hasn't he
been coming here ever since I can remember? Evidently you didn't
keep him as well posted this time as you usually do. He came
here and asked for me."
"And I suppose," said Eileen, an ugly red beginning to rush into
her white cheeks, "that you took pains to make things
uncomfortable for me."
"I am very much afraid," said Linda, "that you are right. You
have made things uncomfortable for me ever since I can remember,
for I can't remember the time when you were not finding fault
with me, putting me in the wrong and getting me criticized and
punished if you possibly could. It was a fair understanding that
you should be here, and you were not, and I was seeing red about
it; and just as John came in I found your note in tile living
room and read it aloud.';
"Oh, well, there was nothing in that," said Eileen in a relieved
tone.
"Nothing in the wording of it, no," said Linda, "but there was
everything in the intention back of it. Because you did not live
up to your tacit agreement, and because I had been on high
tension for two or three days, I lost my temper completely. I
brought John Gilman up here and showed him the suite of rooms in
which you have done for yourself, for four years. I gave him
rather a thorough inventory of your dressing table and drawers,
and then I opened the closet door and called his attention to the
number and the quality of the garments hanging there. The box
underneath them I thought was a shoe box, but it didn't prove to
be exactly that; and for that I want to tell you, as I have
already told John, I am sorry. I wouldn't have done that if I
had known what I was doing."
"Is that all?" inquired Eileen, making a desperate effort at
self-control.
"Not quite," said Linda. "When I finished with your room, I took
him back and showed him mine in even greater detail than I showed
him yours. I thought the contrast would be more enlightening
than anything either one of us could say."
"And I suppose you realize," said Eileen bitterly, "that you lost
me John Gilman when you did it."
"I?" said Linda. "I lost you John Gilman when I did it? But I
didn't do it. You did it. You have been busy for four years
doing it. If you hadn't done it, it wouldn't have been there for
me to show him. I can't see that this is profitable. Certainly
it's the most distressing thing that ever has occurred for me.
But I didn't feel that I could let you meet John Gilman tonight
without telling you what he knows. If you have any way to square
your conscience and cleanse your soul before you meet him, you
had better do it, for he's a mighty fine man and if you lose him
you will have lost the best chance that is likely ever to come to
you."
Linda sat studying Eileen. She saw the gallant effort she was
making to keep her self-possession, to think with her accustomed
rapidity, to strike upon some scheme whereby she could square
herself. She rose and started toward the door.
"What you'll say to John I haven't the faintest notion," she
said. "I told him very little. I just showed him."
Then she went out and closed the door after her. At the foot of
the stairs she met Katy admitting Gilman. Without any
preliminaries she said: "I repeat, John, that I'm sorry for what
happened the other day. I have just come from Eileen. She will
be down as soon as Katy tells her you're here, no doubt. I have
done what I told you I would. She knows what I showed you so you
needn't employ any subterfuges. You can be frank and honest with
each other."
"I wish to God we could," said John Gilman.
Linda went to her work. She decided that she would gauge what
happened by the length of time John stayed. If he remained only
a few minutes it would indicate that there had been a rupture.
If he stayed as long as he usually did, the chances were that
Eileen's wit had triumphed as usual.
At twelve o'clock Linda laid her pencils in the box, washed the
brushes, and went down the back stairs to the ice chest for a
glass of milk. The living room was still lighted and Linda
thought Eileen's laugh quite as gay as she ever had heard it.
Linda closed her lips very tight and slowly climbed the stairs.
When she entered her room she walked up to the mirror and stared
at herself in the glass for a long time, and then of herself she
asked this question:
"Well, how do you suppose she did it?"
CHAPTER XVIII. Spanish Iris
Just as Linda was most deeply absorbed with her own concerns
there came a letter from Marian which Linda read and reread
several times; for Marian wrote:
MY DEAREST PAL:
Life is so busy up San Francisco way that it makes Lilac Valley
look in retrospection like a peaceful sunset preliminary to bed
time.
But I want you to have the consolation and the comfort of knowing
that I have found at least two friends that I hope will endure.
One is a woman who has a room across the hall from mine in my
apartment house. She is a newspaper woman and life is very full
for her, but it is filled with such intensely interesting things
that I almost regret having made my life work anything so prosaic
as inanimate houses; but then it's my dream to enliven each house
I plan with at least the spirit of home. This woman--her name is
Dana Meade--enlivens every hour of her working day with something
concerning the welfare of humanity. She is a beautiful woman in
her soul, so extremely beautiful that I can't at this minute
write you a detailed description of her hair and her eyes and her
complexion, because this nice, big, friendly light that radiates
from her so lights her up and transfigures her that everyone says
how beautiful she is, and yet I have a vague recollection that
her nose is what you would call a "beak," and I am afraid her
cheek bones are too high for good proportion, and I know that her
hair is not always so carefully dressed as it should be, but what
is the difference when the hair is crowned with a halo? I can't
swear to any of these things; they're sketchy impressions. The
only thing I am absolutely sure about is the inner light that
shines to an unbelievable degree. I wish she had more time and I
wish I had more time and that she and I might become such friends
as you and I are. I can't tell you, dear, how much I think of
you. It seems to me that you're running a sort of undercurrent
in my thoughts all day long.
You will hardly credit it, Linda, but a few days ago I drove a
car through the thickest traffic, up a steep hill, and round a
curve. I did it, but practically collapsed when it was over.
The why of it was this: I think I told you before that in the
offices of Nicholson and Snow there is a man who is an
understanding person. He is the junior partner and his name is
Eugene Snow. I happened to arrive at his desk the day I came for
my instructions and to make my plans for entering their contest.
He was very kind to me and went out of his way to smooth out the
rough places. Ever since, he makes a point of coming to me and
talking a few minutes when I am at the office or when he passes
me on my way to the drafting rooms where I take my lessons. The
day I mention I had worked late and hard the night before. I had
done the last possible thing to the plans for my dream house. At
the last minute, getting it all on paper, working at the
specifications, at which you know I am wobbly, was nervous
business; and when I came from the desk after having turned in my
plans, perhaps I showed fatigue. Anyway, he said to me that his
car was below. He said also that he was a lonely person, having
lost his wife two years ago, and not being able very frequently
to see his little daughter who is in the care of her grandmother,
there were times when he was hungry for the companionship he had
lost. He asked me if I would go with him for a drive and I told
him that I would. I am rather stunned yet over what happened.
The runabout he led me to was greatly like yours, and, Linda, he
stopped at a florist's and came out with an armload of
bloom--exquisite lavender and pale pink and faint yellow and
waxen white--the most enticing armload of spring. For one minute
I truly experienced a thrill. I thought he was going to give
that mass of flowers to me, but he did not. He merely laid it
across my lap and said: "Edith adored the flowers from bulbs. I
never see such bloom that my heart does not ache with a keen,
angry ache to think that she should be taken from the world, and
the beauty that she so loved, so early and so ruthlessly. We'll
take her these as I would take them to her were she living."
So, Linda dear, I sat there and looked at color and drank in
fragrance, and we whirled through the city and away to a cemetery
on a beautiful hill, and filled a vase inside the gates of a
mausoleum with these appealing flowers. Then we sat down, and a
man with a hurt heart told me about his hurt, and what an effort
he was making to get through the world as the woman he loved
would have had him; and before I knew what I was doing, Linda, I
told him the tellable part of my own hurts. I even lifted my
turban and bowed my white head before him. This hurt--it was one
of the inexorable things that come to people in this world--I
could talk about. That deeper hurt, which has put a scar that
never will be effaced on my soul, of course I could not tell him
about. But when we went back to the car he said to me that he
would help me to get back into the sunlight. He said the first
thing I must do to regain self-confidence was to begin driving
again. I told him I could not, but he said I must, and made me
take the driver's seat of a car I had never seen and take the
steering wheel of a make of machine I had never driven, and
tackle two or three serious problems for a driver. I did it all
right, Linda, because I couldn't allow myself to fail the kind of
a man Mr. Snow is, when he was truly trying to help me, but in
the depths of my heart I am afraid I am a coward forever, for
there is a ghastly illness takes possession of me as I write
these details to you. But anyway, put a red mark on your
calendar beside the date on which you get this letter, and
joyfully say to yourself that Marian has found two real,
sympathetic friends.
In a week or ten days I shall know about the contest. If 1:
win, as I really have a sneaking hope that I shall, since I have
condensed the best of two dozen houses into one and exhausted my
imagination on my dream home, I will surely telegraph, and you
can make it a day of jubilee. If I fail, I will try to find out
where my dream was not true and what can be done to make it
materialize properly; but between us, Linda girl, I am going to
be dreadfully disappointed. I could use the material value that
prize represents. I could start my life work which I hope to do
in Lilac Valley on the prestige and the background that it would
give me. I don't know, Linda, whether you ever learned to pray
or not, but I have, and it's a thing that helps when the black
shadow comes, when you reach the land of "benefits forgot and
friends remembered not."
And this reminds me that I should not write to my very dearest
friend who has her own problems and make her heart sad with mine;
so to the joyful news of my two friends add a third, Linda, for I
am going to tell you a secret because it will make you happy.
Since I have been in San Francisco some man, who for a reason of
his own does not tell me his name, has been writing me extremely
attractive letters. I have had several of them and I can't tell
you, Linda, what they mean to me or how they help me. There is a
touch of whimsy about them. I can't as yet connect them with
anybody I ever met, but to me they are taking the place of a
little lunch on the bread of life. They are such real, such
vivid, such alive letters from such a real person that I have
been doing the very foolish and romantic thing of answering them
as my heart dictates and signing my own name to them, which on
the surface looks unwise when the man in the case keeps his
identity in the background; but since he knows me and knows my
name it seems useless to do anything else: and answer these
letters I shall and must; because every one of them is to me a
strong light thrown on John Gilman. Every time one of these
letters comes to me I have the feeling that I would like to reach
out through space and pick up the man who is writing them and
dangle him before Eileen and say to her: "Take HIM. I dare you
to take HIM." And my confidence, Linda, is positively supreme
that she could not do it.
You know, between us, Linda, we regarded Eileen as a rare
creature, a kind of exotic thing, made to be kept in a glass
house with tempered air and warmed water; but as I go about the
city and at times amuse myself at concerts and theaters, I am
rather dazed to tell you, honey, that the world is chock full of
Eileens. On the streets, in the stores, everywhere I go,
sometimes half a dozen times in a day I say to myself: "There
goes Eileen." I haven't a doubt that Eileen has a heart, if it
has not become so calloused that nobody could ever reach it, and
I suspect she has a soul, but the more I see of her kind the more
I feel that John Gilman may have to breast rather black water
before he finds them.
With dearest love, be sure to remember me to Katherine O'Donovan.
Hug her tight and give her my unqualified love. Don't let her
forget me.
As ever,
MARIAN.
This was the letter that Linda read once, then she read it again
and then she read it a third time, and after that she lost count
and reread it whenever she was not busy doing something else, for
it was a letter that was the next thing to laying hands upon
Marian. The part of the letter concerning the unknown man who
was writing Marian, Linda pondered over deeply.
"That is the best thing I ever did in my life," she said in selfcommendation.
"It's doing more than I hoped it would. It's
giving Marian something to think about. It's giving her an
interest in life. It's distracting her attention. Without
saying a word about John Gilman it is making her see for herself
the weak spots in him through the very subtle method of calling
her attention to the strength that may lie in another man. For
once in your life, Linda, you have done something strictly worth
while. The thing for you to do is to keep it up, and in order to
keep it up, to make each letter fresh and original, you will have
to do a good deal of sticking around Peter Morrison's location
and absorbing rather thoroughly the things he says. Peter
doesn't know he is writing those letters but he is in them till
it's a wonder Marian does not hear him drawl and see the imps
twisting his lips as she reads them. Before I write another
single one I'll go see Peter. Maybe he will have that article
written. I'll take a pencil, and as he reads I'll jot down the
salient points and then I'll come home and work out a head and
tail piece for him to send in with it, and in that way I'll ease
my soul about the skylight and the fireplace."
So Linda took pad and pencils, raided Katy for everything she
could find that was temptingly edible, climbed into the Bear Cat,
and went to see Peter as frankly as she would have crossed the
lawn to visit Marian. He was not in the garage when she stopped
her car before it, but the workmen told her that he had strolled
up the mountain and that probably he would return soon. Learning
that he had been gone but a short time Linda set the Bear Cat
squalling at the top of its voice. Then she took possession of
the garage, and clearing Peter's worktable spread upon it the
food she had brought, and then started out to find some flowers
for decorations. When Peter came upon the scene he found Linda,
flushed and brilliant eyed, holding before him a big bouquet of
alder bloom, the last of the lilacs she had found in a cool,
shaded place, pink filaree, blue lupin, and white mahogany
panicles. "Peter," she cried. "you can't guess what I have been
doing!"
Peter glanced at the flowers.
"Isn't it obvious?" he inquired.
"No, it isn't," said Linda, "because I am capable of two
processes at once. The work of my hands is visible; with it I am
going to decorate your table. You won't have to go down to the
restaurant for your supper tonight because I have brought my
supper up to share with you, and after we finish, you're going to
read me your article as you have rewritten it. I am going to
decorate it and we are going to make a hit with it that will be
at least a start on the road to greater fame. What you see is
material. You can pick it up, smell it, admire it and eat it.
But what I have truly been doing is setting Spanish iris for
yards down one side of the bed of your stream. When I left it
was a foot and a half high Peter, and every blue that the sky
ever knew in its loveliest moments, and a yellow that is the
concentrated essence of the best gold from the heart of
California. Oh, Peter, there is enchantment in the way I set it.
There are irregular deep beds, and there are straggly places
where there are only one or two in a ragged streak, and then it
runs along the edge in a fringy rim, and then it stretches out in
a marshy place that is going to have some other wild things,
arrowheads, and orchids, and maybe a bunch of paint brush on a
high, dry spot near by. I wish you could see it!"
Peter looked at Linda reflectively and then he told her that he
could see it. He fold her that he adored it, that he was crazy
about her straggly continuity and her fringy border, but there
was not one word of truth in what he said, because what he saw
was a slender thing, willowy, graceful; roughened wavy black hair
hanging half her length in heavy braids, dark eyes and bright
cheeks, a vivid red line of mouth, and a bright brown line of
freckles bridging a prominent and aristocratic nose. What he was
seeing was a soul, a young thing, a thing he coveted with every
nerve and fiber of his being. And while he glibly humored her in
her vision of decorating his brook, in his own consciousness he
was saying to himself: "Is there any reason why I should not try
for her?"
And then he answered himself. "There is no reason in your life.
There is nothing ugly that could offend her or hurt her. The
reason, the real reason, probably lies in the fact that if she
were thinking of caring for anyone it would be for that
attractive young schoolmate she brought up here for me to
exercise my wits upon. It is very likely that she regards me in
the light of a grandfatherly person to whom she can come with her
joys or her problems, as frankly as she has now."
So Peter asked if the irises crossed the brook and ran down both
sides. Linda sat on a packing case and concentrated on the iris,
and finally she announced that they did. She informed him that
his place was going to bc natural, that Nature evolved things in
her own way. She did not grow irises down one side of a brook
and arrowheads down the other. They waded across and flew across
and visited back and forth, riding the water or the wind or the
down of a bee or the tail of a cow. As she served the supper she
had brought she very gravely informed him that there would be
iris on both sides of his brook, and cress and miners' lettuce
under the bridge; and she knew exactly where the wild clematis
grew that would whiten his embankment after his workmen had
extracted the last root of poison oak.
"It may not scorch you, Peter," she said gravely, "but you must
look out for the Missus and the little things. I haven't
definitely decided on her yet, but she looks a good deal like
Mary Louise Whiting to mc. I saw her the other day. She came to
school after Donald. I liked her looks so well that I said to
myself: 'Everybody talks about how fine she is. I shouldn't
wonder if I had better save her for Peter'; but if I decide to,
you should act that poison stuff out, because it's sure as
shooting to attack any one with the soft, delicate skin that goes
with a golden head."
"Oh, let's leave it in," said Peter, "and dispense with the
golden head. By the time you get that stream planted as you're
planning, I'll have become so accustomed to a dark head bobbing
up and down beside it that I won't take kindly to a sorrel top."
"That is positively sacrilegious," said Linda, lifting her hands
to her rough black hair. "Never in my life saw anything lovelier
than the rich gold on Louise Whiting's bare head as she bent to
release her brakes and start her car. A black head looks like a
cinder bed beside it; and only think what a sunburst it will be
when Mary Louise kneels down beside the iris."
When they had finished their supper Linda gathered up the
remnants and put them in the car, then she laid a notebook and
pencil on the table.
"Now I want to hear that article," she said. "I knew you would
do it over the minute I was gone, and I knew you would keep it to
read to me before you sent it."
"Hm," said Peter. "Is it second sight or psychoanalysis or
telepathy, or what?"
"Mostly 'what'," laughed Linda. "I merely knew. The workmen are
gone and everything is quiet now, Peter. Begin. I am crazy to
get the particular angle from which you 'make the world safe for
democracy.' John used to call our attention to your articles
during the war. He said we had not sent another man to France
who could write as humanely and as interestingly as you did. I
wish I had kept those articles; because I didn't get anything
from them to compare with what I can get since I have a slight
acquaintance with the procession that marches around your mouth.
Peter, you will have to watch that mouth of yours. It's an
awfully betraying feature. So long as it's occupied with
politics and the fads and the foibles and the sins and the
foolishness and the extravagances of humanity, it's all very
well. But if you ever get in trouble or if ever your heart
hurts, or you get mad enough to kill somebody, that mouth of
yours is going to be a most awfully revealing feature, Peter.
You will have hard work to settle it down into hard-and-fast
noncommittal lines."
Peter looked at the girl steadily.
"Have you specialized on my mouth?" he asked.
"Huh-umph!" said Linda, shaking her head vigorously. When I
specialize I use a pin and a microscope and go right to the root
of matters as I was taught. This is superficial. I am
extemporizing now."
"Well, if this is extemporizing," said Peter, "God help my soul
if you ever go at me with a pin and a microscope."
"Oh, but I won't!" cried Linda. "It wouldn't be kind to pin your
friends on a setting board and use a microscope on them. You
might see things that were strictly private. You might see
things they wouldn't want you to see. They might not be your
friends any more if you did that. When I make a friend I just
take him on trust like I did Donald. You're my friend, aren't
you, Peter?"
"Yes, Linda," said Peter soberly. "Put me to any test you can
think of if you want proof."
"But I don't believe in PROVING friends, either," said Linda. "I
believe in nurturing them. I would set a friend in my garden and
water his feet and turn the sunshine on him and tell him to stay
there and grow. I might fertilize him, I might prune him, and I
might use insecticide on him. I might spray him with rather
stringent solutions, but I give you my word I would not test him.
If he flourished under my care I would know it, and if he did not
I would know it, and that would be all I would want to know. I
have watched Daddy search for the seat of nervous disorders, and
sometimes he had to probe very deep to find what developed nerves
unduly but he didn't ever do any picking and raveling and
fringing at the soul of a human being merely for the sake of
finding out what it was made of; and everyone says I am like
him."
"I wish I might have known him," said Peter.
"Don't I wish it!" said Linda. "Now then, Peter, go ahead. Read
your article."
Peter opened a packing case, picked out a sheaf of papers, and
sitting opposite Linda, began to read. He was dumbfounded to
find that he, a man who had read and talked extemporaneously
before great bodies of learned men, should have cold feet and
shaking hands and a hammering heart because he was trying to read
an article on America for Americans before a high-school Junior.
But presently, as the theme engrossed him, he forgot the vision
of Linda interesting herself in his homemaking, and saw instead a
vision of his country threatened on one side by the red menace of
the Bolshevik, on the other by the yellow menace of the Jap, and
yet on another by the treachery of the Mexican and the slowly
uprising might of the black man, and presently he was thundering
his best-considered arguments at Linda until she imperceptibly
drew back from him on the packing case, and with parted lips and
wide eyes she listened in utter absorption. She gazed at a
transformed Peter with aroused eyes and a white light of
patriotism on his forehead, and a conception even keener than
anything that the war had brought her young soul was burning in
her heart of what a man means when he tries to express his
feeling concerning the land of his birth. Presently, without
realizing what she was doing, she reached for her pad and pencils
and rapidly began sketching a stretch of peaceful countryside
over which a coming storm of gigantic proportions was gathering.
Fired by Peter's article, the touch of genius in Linda's soul
became creative and she fashioned huge storm clouds wind driven,
that floated in such a manner as to bring the merest suggestion
of menacing faces, black faces, yellow faces, brown faces, and
under the flash of lightning, just at the obscuring of the sun, a
huge, evil, leering red face. She swept a stroke across her
sheet and below this she began again, sketching the same stretch
of country she had pictured above, strolling in cultivated
fields, dotting it with white cities, connecting it with smooth
roadways, sweeping the sky with giant planes. At one side,
winging in from the glow of morning, she drew in the
strong-winged flight of a flock of sea swallows, peacefully
homing toward the far-distant ocean. She was utterly unaware
when Peter stopped reading. Absorbed, she bent over her work.
When she had finished she looked up.
"Now I'll take this home," she said. "I can't do well on color
with pencils. You hold that article till I have time to put this
on water-color paper and touch it up a bit here and there, and I
believe it will be worthy of starting and closing your article."
She pushed the sketches toward him.
"You little wonder!" said Peter softly.
"Yes, 'little' is good," scoffed Linda, rising to very nearly his
height and reaching for the lunch basket. " 'Little' is good,
Peter. If I could do what I like to myself I would get in some
kind of a press and squash down about seven inches."
"Oh, Lord!" said Peter. "Forget it. What's the difference what
the inches of your body are so long as your brain has a stature
worthy of mention?"
"Good-bye!" said Linda. "On the strength of that I'll jazz that
sketch all up, bluey and red-purple and jade-green. I 11 make it
as glorious as a Catalina sunset."
As she swung the car around the sharp curve at the boulders she
looked back and laughingly waved her hand at Peter, and Peter
experienced a wild desire to shriek lest she lose control of the
car and plunge down the steep incline. A second later, when he
saw her securely on the road below, he smiled to himself.
"Proves one thing," he said conclusively. "She is over the
horrors. She is driving unconsciously. Thank God she knew that
curve so well she could look the other way and drive it mentally.
CHAPTER XIX. The Official Bug-Catcher
Not a mile below the exit from Peter's grounds, Linda perceived a
heavily laden person toiling down the roadway before her and when
she ran her car abreast and stopped it, Henry Anderson looked up
at her with joyful face.
"Sorry I can't uncover, fair lady," he said, "but you see I am
very much otherwise engaged."
What Linda saw was a tired, disheveled man standing in the
roadway beside her car, under each arm a boulder the size of her
head, one almost jet-black, shot through with lines of white and
flying figures of white crossing between these bands that almost
reminded one of winged dancers. The other was a combination
stone made up of matrix thickly imbedded with pebbles of brown,
green, pink, and dull blue.
"For pity's sake!" said Linda. "Where are you going and why are
you personally demonstrating a new method of transporting rock?"
"I am on my way down Lilac Valley to the residence of a friend of
mine," said Henry Anderson. "I heard her say the other day that
she saved every peculiarly marked boulder she could find to
preserve coolness and moisture in her fern bed."
Linda leaned over and opened the car door.
"All well and good," she said; "but why in the cause of reason
didn't you leave them at Peter's and bring them down in his car?"
Henry Anderson laid the stones in the bottom of the car, stepped
in and closed the door behind him. He drew a handkerchief from
his pocket and wiped his perspiring face and soiled hands.
"I had two sufficient personal reasons," he said. "One was that
the car at our place is Peter Morrison's car, not mine; and the
other was that it's none of anybody's business but my own if I
choose to 'say it' with stones."
Linda started the car, being liberal with gas--so liberal that it
was only a few minutes till Henry Anderson protested.
"This isn't the speedway," he said. "What's your hurry?"
"Two reasons seem to be all that are allowed for things at the
present minute," answered Linda. "One of mine is that you can't
drive this beast slow, and the other is that my workroom is piled
high with things I should be doing. I have two sketches I must
complete while I am in the mood, and I have had a great big
letter from my friend, Marian Thorne, today that I want to answer
before I go to bed tonight."
"In other words," said Henry Anderson bluntly, "you want me to
understand that when I have reached your place and dumped these
stones I can beat it; you have no further use for me."
"You said that," retorted Linda.
"And who ever heard of such a thing," said Henry, "as a young
woman sending away a person of my numerous charms and attractions
in order to work, or to write a letter to another woman?"
"But you're not taking into consideration," said Linda, "that I
must work, and I scarcely know you, while I have known Marian
ever since I was four years old and she is my best friend."
"Well, she has no advantage over me" said Henry instantly,
"because I have known you quite as long as Peter Morrison has at
least, and I'm your official bug-catcher."
"I had almost forgotten about the bugs," said Linda.
"Well, don't for a minute think I am going to give you an
opportunity to forget," said Henry Anderson.
He reached across and laid his hand over Linda's on the steering
gear. Linda said nothing, neither did she move. She merely
added more gas and put the Bear Cat forward at a dizzy whirl.
Henry laughed.
"That's all right, my beauty," he said. "Don't you think for a
minute that I can't ride as fast as you can drive."
A dull red mottled Linda's cheeks. As quickly as it could be
done she brought the Bear Cat to a full stop. Then she turned
and looked at Henry Anderson. The expression in her eyes was
disconcerting even to that cheeky young individual--he had not
borne her gaze a second until he removed his hand.
"Thanks," said Linda in a dry drawl. "And you will add to my
obligation if in the future you will remember not to deal in
assumptions. I am not your 'beauty,' and I'm not anyone's
beauty; while the only thing in this world that I am interested
in at present is to get the best education I can and at the same
time carry on work that I love to do. I have a year to finish my
course in the high school and when I finish I will only have a
good beginning for whatever I decide to study next."
"That's nothing," said the irrepressible Henry. "It will take me
two years to catch a sufficient number of gold bugs to be really
serious, but there wouldn't be any harm in having a mutual
understanding and something definite to work for, and then we
might be able, you know, to cut out some of that year of highschool
grinding. If the plans I have submitted in the Nicholson
and Snow contest should just happen to be the prize winners, that
would put matters in such a shape for young Henry that he could
devote himself to crickets and tumble-bugs at once."
"Don't you think," said Linda quietly, "that you would better
forget that silly jesting and concentrate the best of your brains
on improving your plans for Peter Morrison's house?"
"Why, surely I will if that's what you command me to do," said
Henry, purposely misunderstanding her.
"You haven't mentioned before," said Linda, "that you had
submitted plans in that San Francisco contest."
"All done and gone," said Henry Anderson lightly. "I had an
inspiration one day and I saw a way to improve a house with
comforts and conveniences I never had thought of before. I was
enthusiastic over the production when I got it on paper and
figured it. It's exactly the house that I am going to build for
Peter, and when I've cut my eye teeth on it I am going to correct
everything possible and build it in perfection for you."
"Look here," said Linda soberly, "I'm not accustomed to this sort
of talk. I don't care for it. If you want to preserve even the
semblance of friendship with me you must stop it, and get to
impersonal matters and stay there."
"All right," he agreed instantly, "but if you don't like my line
of talk, you're the first girl I ever met that didn't."
"You have my sympathy," said Linda gravely. "You have been
extremely unfortunate."
Then she started the Bear Cat, and again running at undue speed
she reached her wild-flower garden. Henry Anderson placed the
stones as she directed and waited for an invitation to come in,
but the invitation was not given. Linda thanked him for the
stones. She told him that in combination with a few remaining
from the mantel they would make all she would require, and
excusing herself she drove to the garage. When she came in she
found the irrepressible Henry sitting on the back steps
explaining to Katy the strenuous time he had had finding and
carrying down the stones they had brought. Katy had a plate of
refreshments ready to hand him when Linda laughingly passed them
and went to her room.
When she had finished her letter to Marian she took a sheet of
drawing paper, and in her most attractive lettering sketched in
the heading, "A Palate Teaser," which was a direct quotation from
Katy. Below she wrote:
You will find Tunas in the cacti thickets of any desert, but if
you are so fortunate as to be able to reach specimens which were
brought from Mexico and set as hedges around the gardens of the
old missions, you will find there the material for this salad in
its most luscious form. Naturally it can be made from either
Opuntia Fiscus-Indica or Opuntia Tuna, but a combination of these
two gives the salad an exquisite appearance and a tiny touch more
delicious flavor, because Tuna, which is red, has to my taste a
trifle richer and fuller flavor than Indica, which is yellow.
Both fruits taste more like the best well-ripened watermelon than
any other I recall.
Bring down the Tunas with a fishing rod or a long pole with a
nail in the end. With anything save your fingers roll them in
the sand or in tufts of grass to remove the spines. Slice off
either end, score the skin down one side, press lightly, and a
lush globule of pale gold or rosy red fruit larger than a hen's
egg lies before you. With a sharp knife, beginning with a layer
of red and ending with one of yellow, slice the fruits thinly,
stopping to shake out the seeds as you work. In case you live in
San Diego County or farther south, where it is possible to secure
the scarlet berries of the Strawberry Cactus-- it is the
Mammillaria Goodridgei species that you should use--a beautiful
decoration for finishing your salad can be made from the red
strawberries of these. If you live too far north to find these,
you may send your salad to the table beautifully decorated by
cutting fancy figures from the red Tuna, or by slicing it
lengthwise into oblong pieces and weaving them into a decoration
over the yellow background.
For your dressing use the juice of a lemon mixed with that of an
orange, sweetened to taste, into which you work, a drop at a
time, four tablespoons of the best Palermo olive oil. If the
salad is large more oil and more juice should be used.
To get the full deliciousness of this salad, the fruit must have
been on ice, and the dressing made in a bowl imbedded in cracked
ice, so that when ready to blend both are ice-cold, and must be
served immediately.
Gigantic specimens of fruit-bearing Cacti can be found all over
the Sunland Desert near to the city, but they are not possessed
of the full flavor of the cultivated old mission growths, so that
it is well worth your while to make a trip to the nearest of
these for the fruit with which to prepare this salad. And if, as
you gather it, you should see a vision of a white head, a thin,
ascetic, old face, a lean figure trailing a brown robe, slender
white hands clasping a heavy cross; if you should hear the music
of worship ascending from the throats of Benedictine fathers
leading a clamoring choir of the blended voices of Spaniard,
Mexican, and Indian, combining with the music of the bells and
the songs of the mocking birds, nest making among the Tunas, it
will be good for your soul in the line of purging it from
selfishness, since in this day we are not asked to give all of
life to the service of others, only a reasonable part of it.
Linda read this over, working in changes here and there, then she
picked up her pencil and across the top of her sheet indicated an
open sky with scarcely a hint of cloud. Across the bottom she
outlined a bit of Sunland Desert she well remembered, in the
foreground a bed of flat-leaved nopal, flowering red and yellow,
the dark red prickly pears, edible, being a near relative of the
fruits she had used in her salad. After giving the prickly pear
the place of honor to the left, in higher growth she worked in
the slender, cylindrical, jointed stems of the Cholla, shading
the flowers a paler, greenish yellow. On the right, balancing
the Cholla, she drew the oval, cylindrical columns of the
hedgehog cactus, and the color touch of the big magenta flowers
blended exquisitely with the color she already had used. At the
left, the length of her page, she drew a gigantic specimen of
Opuntia Tuna, covered with flowers, and well-developed specimens
of the pears whose coloring ran into the shades of the hedgehog
cactus.
She was putting away her working materials when she heard steps
and voices on the stairs, so she knew that Eileen and John Gilman
were coming. She did not in the least want them, yet she could
think of no excuse for refusing them admission that would not
seem ungracious. She hurried to the wall, snatched down the
paintings for Peter Morrison, and looked around to see how she
could dispose of them. She ended by laying one of them in a
large drawer which she pushed shut and locked. The other she
placed inside a case in the wall which formerly had been used for
billiard cues. At their second tap she opened the door. Eileen
was not at her best. There was a worried look across her eyes, a
restlessness visible in her movements, but Gilman was radiant.
"What do you think, Linda?" he cried. "Eileen has just named the
day!"
"I did no such thing," broke in Eileen.
"Your pardon, fair lady, you did not," said Gilman. "That was
merely a figure of speech. I meant named the month. She has
definitely promised in October, and I may begin to hunt a
location and plan a home for us. I want the congratulations of
my dear friend and my dearer sister."
Linda held out her hand and smiled as bravely as she could.
"I am very glad you are so pleased, John," she said quietly, "and
I hope that you will be as happy as you deserve to be."
"Now exactly what do you mean by that?" he asked.
"Oh, Linda prides herself on being deep and subtle and conveying
hidden meanings," said Eileen. "She means what a thousand people
will tell you in the coming months: merely that they hope you
will be happy."
"Of course," Linda hastened to corroborate, wishing if possible
to avoid any unpleasantness.
"You certainly have an attractive workroom here," said John,
"much as I hate to see it spoiled for billiards."
"It's too bad," said Linda, "that I have spoiled it for you for
billiards. I have also spoiled the outside appearance of the
house for Eileen."
"Oh, I don't know," said John. "I looked at it carefully the
other day as I came up, and I thought your changes enhanced the
value of the property."
"I am surely glad to hear that," said Linda. "Take a look
through my skylight and my new window. Imagine you see the rugs
I am going to have and a few more pieces of furniture when I can
afford them; and let me particularly point out the fireplace that
Henry Anderson and your friend Peter designed and had built for
me. Doesn't it add a soul and a heart to my study?"
John Gilman walked over and looked at the fireplace critically.
He read the lines aloud, then he turned to Eileen.
"Why, that is perfectly beautiful," he said. "Let's duplicate it
in our home."
"You bungler!" scoffed Eileen.
"I think you're right," said Gilman reflectively, "exactly right.
Of course I would have no business copying Linda's special
fireplace where the same people would see it frequently; and if I
had stopped to think a second, I might have known that you would
prefer tiling to field stone."
"Linda seems very busy tonight," said Eileen. "Perhaps we are
bothering her."
"Yes," said John, "we'll go at once. I had to run up to tell our
good news; and I wanted to tell you too, Linda dear, that I think
both of us misjudged Eileen the other day. You know, Linda, you
have always dressed according to your father's ideas, which were
so much simpler and plainer than the manner in which your mother
dressed Eileen, that she merely thought that you wished to
continue in his way. She had no objection to your having any
kind of clothes you chose, if only you had confided in her, and
explained to her what you wanted."
Linda stood beside her table, one lean hand holding down the
letter she had been writing. She stood very still, but she was
powerless to raise her eyes to the face of either John or Eileen.
Above everything she did not wish to go any further in revealing
Eileen to John Gilman. If he knew what he knew and if he felt
satisfied, after what he had seen, with any explanation that
Eileen could trump up to offer, Linda had no desire to carry the
matter further. She had been ashamed of what she already had
done. She had felt angry and dissatisfied with herself, so she
stood before them downcast and silent.
"And it certainly was a great joke on both of us," said John
jovially, "what we thought about that box of cigarettes, you
know. They were a prize given by a bridge club at an
'Ambassador' benefit for the Good Samaritan Hospital. Eileen,
the little card shark she is, won it, and she was keeping it
hidden away there to use as a gift for my birthday. Since we
disclosed her plans prematurely, she gave it to me at once, and
I'm having a great time treating all my friends."
At that instant Linda experienced a revulsion. Previously she
had not been able to raise her eyes. Now it would have been
quite impossible to avoid looking straight into Eileen's face.
But Eileen had no intention of meeting anyone's gaze at that
minute. She was fidgeting with a sheet of drawing paper.
"Careful you don't bend that," cautioned Linda. Then she looked
at John Gilman. He BELIEVED what he was saying; he was happy
again. Linda evolved the best smile she could.
"How stupid of us not to have guessed!" she said.
Closing the door behind them, Linda leaned against it and looked
up through the skylight at the creep blue of the night, the
low-hung stars. How long she stood there she did not know.
Presently she went to her chair, picked up her pencil, and slowly
began to draw. At first she scarcely realized what she was
doing, then she became absorbed in her work. Then she reached
for her color box and brushes, and shortly afterward tacked
against the wall an extremely clever drawing of a greatly
enlarged wasp. Skillfully she had sketched a face that was
recognizable round the big insect eyes. She had surmounted the
face by a fluff of bejewelled yellow curls, encased the hind legs
upon which the creature stood upright in pink velvet Turkish
trousers and put tiny gold shoes on the feet. She greatly
exaggerated the wings into long trails and made them of green
gauze with ruffled edges. All the remainder of the legs she had
transformed into so many braceleted arms, each holding a tiny
fan, or a necklace, a jewel box, or a handkerchief of lace. She
stood before this sketch, studying it for a few minutes, then she
walked over to the table and came back with a big black pencil.
Steadying her hand with a mahl stick rested against the wall,
with one short sharp stroke she drew a needle-pointed stinger, so
screened by the delicate wings that it could not be seen unless
you scrutinized the picture minutely. After that, with careful,
interested hands she brought out Peter Morrison's drawings and
replaced them on the wall to dry.
CHAPTER XX. The Cap Sheaf
Toward the last of the week Linda began to clear the mental decks
of her ship of life in order that she might have Saturday free
for her promised day with Donald. She had decided that they
would devote that day to wave-beaten Laguna. It was a long drive
but delightful. It ran over the old King's Highway between miles
of orange and lemon orchards in full flower, bordered by other
miles of roses in their prime.
Every minute when her mind was not actively occupied with her
lessons or her recipes Linda was dreaming of the King's Highway.
Almost unconsciously she began to chant:
"All in the golden weather, forth let us ride today, You and I
together on the King's Highway, The blue skies above us, and
below the shining sea; There's many a road to travel, but it's
this road for me."
You must have ridden this road with an understanding heart and
the arm of God around you to know the exact degree of
disappointment that swelled in Linda's heart when she answered
the telephone early Saturday morning and heard Donald Whiting's
strained voice speaking into it. He was talking breathlessly in
eager, boyish fashion.
"Linda, I am in a garage halfway downtown," he was saying, "and
it looks to me as if to save my soul I couldn't reach you before
noon. I have had the darnedest luck. Our Jap got sick last week
and he sent a new man to take his place. There wasn't a thing
the matter with our car when I drove it in Friday night. This
morning Father wanted to use it on important business, and it
wouldn't run. He ordered me to tinker it up enough to get it to
the shop. I went at it and when it would go, I started You can
imagine the clip I was going, and the thing went to pieces. I
don't know yet how it comes that I saved my skin. I'm pretty
badly knocked out, but I'll get there by noon if it's a possible
thing."
"Oh, that's all right," said Linda, fervently hoping that the
ache in her throat would not tincture her voice.
It was half-past eleven when Donald came. Linda could not bring
herself to give up the sea that day. She found it impossible to
drive the King's Highway. It seemed equally impossible not to
look on the face of the ocean, so she compromised by skirting
Santa Monica Bay, and taking the foothill road she ran it to the
north end of the beach drive. When they had spread their
blankets on the sand, finished their lunch and were resting,
Linda began to question Donald about what had happened. She
wanted to know how long Whitings' gardener had been in their
employ; if they knew where he lived and about his family; if they
knew who his friends were, or anything concerning him. She
inquired about the man who had taken his place, and wanted most
particularly to know what the garage men had found the trouble
with a car that ran perfectly on Friday night and broke down in
half a dozen different places on Saturday morning. Finally
Donald looked at her, laughingly quizzical.
"Linda," he said, "you're no nerve specialist and no naturalist.
You're the cross examiner for the plaintiff. What are you trying
to get at? Make out a case against Yogo Sani?"
"Of course it's all right," said Linda, watching a distant
pelican turn head down and catapult into the sea. "It has to be
all right, but you must admit that it looks peculiar. How have
you been getting along this week?"
Donald waved his hand in the direction of a formation of stone
the size of a small house.
"Been rolling that to the top of the mountain," he said lightly.
Linda's eyes narrowed, her face grew speculative. She looked at
Donald intently.
"Is it as difficult as that?" she asked in a lowered voice as if
the surf and the sea chickens might hear.
"It is just as difficult as that," said Donald. "While you're
talking about peculiar things, I'll tell you one. In class I
came right up against Oka Sayye on the solution of a theorem in
trigonometry. We both had the answer, the correct answer, but we
had arrived at it by widely different routes, and it was up to me
to prove that my line of reasoning was more lucid, more natural,
the inevitable one by which the solution should be reached. We
got so in earnest that I am afraid both of us were rather tense.
I stepped over to his demonstration to point out where I thought
his reasoning was wrong. I got closer to the Jap than I had ever
been before; and by gracious, Linda! scattered, but nevertheless
still there, and visible, I saw a sprinkling of gray hairs just
in front of and over his ears. It caught me unawares, and before
I knew what I was doing, before the professor and the assembled
classroom I blurted it out: 'Say, Oka Sayye, how old are you?'
If the Jap had had any way of killing me, I believe he would have
done it. There was a look in his eyes that was what I would call
deadly. It was only a flash and then, very courteously, putting
me in the wrong, of course, he remarked that he was 'almost
ninekleen'; and it struck me from his look and the way he said it
that it was a lie. If he truly was the average age of the rest
of the class there was nothing for him to be angry about. Then I
did take a deliberate survey. From the settled solidity of his
frame and the shape of his hands and the skin of his face and the
set of his eyes in his head, I couldn't see that much youth.
I'll bet he's thirty if he's a day, and I shouldn't be a bit
surprised if he has graduated at the most worthwhile university
in Japan, before he ever came to this country to get his English
for nothing."
Linda was watching a sea swallow now, and slowly her lean fingers
were gathering handfuls of sand and sifting them into a little
pyramid she was heaping beside her. Again almost under her
breath she spoke.
"Donald, do you really believe that?" she asked. "Is it possible
that mature Jap men are coming here and entering our schools and
availing themselves of the benefits that the taxpayers of
California provide for their children?"
"Didn't you know it?" asked Donald. "I hadn't thought of it in
connection with Oka Sayye, but I do know cases where mature Japs
have been in grade schools with children under ten."
"Oh, Donald!" exclaimed Linda. "If California is permitting that
or ever has permitted it, we're too easy. We deserve to become
their prey if we are so careless."
"Why, I know it's true," said Donald. "I have been in the same
classes with men more than old enough to be my father."
"I never was," said Linda, industriously sifting sand. "I have
been in classes with Japs ever since I have been at school, but
it was with girls and boys of our gardeners and fruit dealers and
curio-shop people, and they were always of my age and entitled to
be in school, since our system includes the education of anybody
who happens to be in California and wants to go to school."
"Did my being late spoil any particular plan you had made,
Linda?"
"Yes," said Linda, "it did."
"Oh, I am so sorry!" cried Donald. "I certainly shall try to see
that it doesn't occur again. Could we do it next Saturday?"
"I am hoping so," said Linda.
"I told Dad," said Donald, "where I wanted to go and what I
wanted to do, and he was awfully sorry but he said it was
business and it would take only a few minutes and he thought I
could do it and be on time. If he had known I would be detained
I don't believe he would have asked it of me. He's a grand old
peter, Linda."
"Yes, I know," said Linda. "There's not much you can tell me
about peters of the grand sort, the real, true flesh-and-blood,
bighearted, human-being fathers, who will take you to the fields
and the woods and take the time to teach you what God made and
how He made it and why He made it and what we can do with it, and
of the fellowship and brotherhood we can get from Nature by being
real kin. The one thing that I have had that was the biggest
thing in all this world was one of these real fathers."
Donald watched as she raised the pyramid higher and higher.
"Did you tell your father whom you were to go with?" she asked.
"Sure I did," said Donald. "Told the whole family at dinner last
night. Told 'em about all the things I was learning, from where
to get soap off the bushes to the best spot for material for
wooden legs or instantaneous relief for snake bite."
"What did they say?" Linda inquired laughingly.
"Unanimously in favour of continuing the course," he said. "I
had already told Father about you when I asked him for books and
any help that he could give me with Oka Sayye. Since I had
mentioned you last night he told Mother and Louise about that,
and they told me to bring you to the house some time. All of
them are crazy to know you. Mother says she is just wild to know
whether a girl who wears boots and breeches and who knows canyons
and the desert and the mountains as you do can be a feminine and
lovable person."
"If I told her how many friends I have, she could have speedily
decided whether I am lovable or not," said Linda; "but I would
make an effort to convince her that I am strictly feminine."
"You would convince her of that without making the slightest
effort. You're infinitely more feminine than any other girl I
have ever known "
"How do you figure that?" asked Linda.
"Well," said Donald, "it's a queer thing about you, Linda. I
take any liberty I pretty nearly please with most of the girls I
have been associated with. I tie their shoes and pull their
hair--down if I want to--and hand them round 'most any way the
notion takes me, and they just laugh and take the same liberties
with me, which proves that I am pretty much a girl with them or
they are pretty much boys with me. But it wouldn't occur to me
to touch your hair or your shoe lace or the tips of your fingers;
which proves that you're more feminine than any other girl I
know, because if you were not I would be treating you more like
another boy. I thought, the first day we were together, that you
were like a boy, and I said so, and I thought it because you did
not tease me and flirt with me, but since I have come to know you
better, you're less like a boy than any other girl I ever have
known."
"Don't get psychological, Donald," said Linda. "Go on with the
Jap. I haven't got an answer yet to what I really want to know.
Have you made the least progress this week? Can you beat him?"
Donald hesitated, studying over the answer.
"Beat him at that trig proposition the other day," he said. "Got
an open commendation before the class. There's not a professor
in any of my classes who isn't 'hep' to what I'm after by this
time, and if I would cajole them a little they would naturally be
on my side, especially if their attention were called to that
incident of yesterday; but you said I have to beat him with my
brains, by doing better work than he does; so about the biggest
thing I can honestly tell you is that I have held my own. I have
only been ahead of him once this week, but I haven't failed in
anything that he has accomplished. I have been able to put some
additional touches to some work that he has done for which he
used to be marked A which means your One Hundred. Double A which
means your plus I made in one instance. And you needn't think
that Oka Sayye does not realize what I am up to as well as any of
the rest of the class, and you needn't think that he is not going
to give me a run for my brain. All I've got will be needed
before we finish this term."
"I see," said Linda, slowly nodding her head.
"I wish," said Donald, "that we had started this thing two years
ago, or better still, four. But of course you were not in the
high school four years ago and there wasn't a girl in my class or
among my friends who cared whether I beat the Jap or not. They
greatly preferred that I take them motoring or to a dance or a
picture show or a beach party. You're the only one except Mother
and Louise who ever inspired me to get down to business."
Linda laid her palm on the top of the sand heap and pressed it
flat. She looked at Donald with laughing eyes.
"Symbolical," she announced. "That sand was the Jap." She
stretched her hand toward him. "That was you. Did you see
yourself squash him?"
Donald's laugh was grim.
"Yes, I saw," he said. "I wish it were as easy as that."
"That was not easy," said Linda; "make a mental computation of
all the seconds that it took me to erect that pyramid and all the
millions of grains of sand I had to gather."
Donald was deeply thoughtful, yet a half smile was playing round
his lips.
"Of all the queer girls I ever knew, you're the cap sheaf,
Linda," he said.
Linda rose slowly, shook the sand from her breeches and stretched
out her hand.
"Let's hotfoot it down to the African village and see what the
movies are doing that is interesting today," she proposed.
CHAPTER XXI. Shifting the Responsibility
On her pillow that night before dropping to almost instantaneous
sleep Linda reflected that if you could not ride the King's
Highway, racing the sands of Santa Monica was a very excellent
substitute. It had been a wonderful day after all. When she had
left Donald at the Lilac Valley end of the car line he had held
her hand tight an instant and looked into her face with the most
engaging of clear, boyish smiles.
"Linda, isn't our friendship the nicest thing that ever happened
to us?" he demanded.
"Yes," answered Linda promptly, "quite the nicest. Make your
plans for all day long next Saturday."
"I'll be here before the birds are awake," promised Donald.
At the close of Monday's sessions, going down the broad walk from
the high school, Donald overtook Linda and in a breathless
whisper he said: "What do you think? I came near Oka Sayye
again this morning in trig, and his hair was as black as jet,
dyed to a midnight, charcoal finish, and I am not right sure that
he had not borrowed some girl's lipstick and rouge pot for the
benefit of his lips and cheeks. Positively he's hectically
youthful today. What do you know about that?"
Then he hurried on to overtake the crowd of boys he had left,
Linda's heart was racing in her breast.
Turning, she re-entered the school building, and taking a
telephone directory she hunted an address, and then, instead of
going to the car line that took her to Lilac Valley she went to
the address she had looked up. With a pencil she wrote a few
lines on a bit of scratch paper in one of her books. That note
opened a door and admitted her to the presence of a tall, lean,
gray-haired man with quick, blue-gray eyes and lips that seemed
capable of being either grave or gay on short notice. With that
perfect ease which Linda had acquired through the young days of
her life in meeting friends of her father, she went to the table
beside which this man was standing and stretched out her hand.
"Judge Whiting?" she asked.
"Yes," said the Judge.
"I am Linda Strong, the younger daughter of Alexander Strong. I
think you knew my father."
"Yes," said the Judge, "I knew him very well indeed, and I have
some small acquaintance with his daughter through very
interesting reports that my son brings home."
"Yes, it is about Donald that I came to see you," said Linda.
If she had been watching as her father would have watched, Linda
would have seen the slight uplift of the Judge's figure, the
tensing of his muscles, the narrowing of his eyes in the swift,
speculative look he passed over her from the crown of her bare,
roughened black head down the gold-brown of her dress to her
slender, well-shod feet. The last part of that glance Linda
caught. She slightly lifted one of the feet under inspection,
thrust it forward and looked at the Judge with a gay challenge in
her dark eyes.
"Are you interested in them too?" she asked.
The Judge was embarrassed. A flush crept into his cheeks. He
was supposed to be master of any emergency that might arise, but
one had arisen in connection with a slip of a schoolgirl that
left him wordless.
"It is very probable," said Linda, "that if my shoes had been
like most other girls' shoes I wouldn't be here today. I was in
the same schoolroom with your son for three years, and he never
saw me or spoke to me until one day he stopped me to inquire why
I wore the kind of shoes I did. He said he had a battle to wage
with me because I tried to be a law to myself, and he wanted to
know why I wasn't like other girls. And I told him I had a crow
to pick with HIM because he had the kind of brain that would be
content to let a Jap beat him in his own school, in his own
language and in his own country; so we made an engagement to
fight to a finish, and it ended by his becoming the only boy
friend I have and the nicest boy friend a girl ever had, I am
very sure. That's why I'm here."
Linda lifted her eyes and Judge Whiting looked into them till he
saw the same gold lights in their depths that Peter Morrison had
seen. He came around the table and placed a big leather chair
for Linda. Then he went back and resumed his own.
"Of course," said the Judge in his most engaging manner. "I
gather from what Donald has told me that you have a reason for
being here, and I want you to understand that I am intensely
interested in anything you have to say to me. Now tell me why
you came."
"I came," said Linda, "because I started something and am afraid
of the possible result. I think very likely if, in retaliation
for what Donald said to me about my hair and my shoes, I had not
twitted him about the use he was making of his brain and done
everything in my power to drive him into competition with Oka
Sayye in the hope that a white man would graduate with the
highest honors, he would not have gone into this competition,
which I am now certain has antagonized Oka Sayye."
Linda folded her slim hands on the table and leaned forward.
"Judge Whiting," she said earnestly, "I know very little about
men. The most I know was what I learned about my father and the
men with whom he occasionally hunted and fished. They were all
such fine men that I must have grown up thinking that every man
was very like them, but one day I came in direct contact with the
Jap that Donald is trying to beat, and the thing I saw in his
face put fear into my heart and it has been there ever since. I
have almost an unreasoning fear of that Jap, not because he has
said anything or done anything. It's just instinctive. I may be
wholly wrong in having come to you and in taking up your time,
but there are two things I wanted to tell you. I could have told
Donald, but if I did and his mind went off at a tangent thinking
of these things he wouldn't be nearly so likely to be in
condition to give his best thought to his studies. If I really
made him see what I think I have seen, and fear what I know I
fear, he might fail where I would give almost anything to see him
succeed; so I thought I would come to you and tell you about it
and ask you please to think it over, and to take extra care of
him, because I really believe that he may be in danger; and if he
is I never shall be able to rid myself of a sense of
responsibility."
"I see," said Judge Whiting. "Now tell me, just as explicitly as
you have told me this, exactly what it is that you fear."
"Last Saturday," said Linda, "Donald told me that while standing
at the board beside Oka Sayye, demonstrating a theorem, he
noticed that there were gray hairs above the Jap's ears, and he
bluntly asked him, before the professor and the class, how old he
was. In telling me, he said he had the feeling that if the Jap
could have done so in that instant, he would have killed him. He
said he was nineteen, but Donald says from the matured lines of
his body, from his hands and his face and his hair, he is certain
that he is thirty or more, and he thinks it very probable that he
may have graduated at home before he came here to get his English
for nothing from our public schools. I never before had the fact
called to my attention that this was being done, but Donald told
me that he had been in classes with matured men when he was less
than ten years of age. That is not fair, Judge Whiting; it is
not right. There should be an age specified above which people
may not be allowed to attend public school."
"I quite agree with you," said the Judge. "That has been done in
the grades, but there is nothing fair in bringing a boy under
twenty in competition with a man graduated from the institutions
of another country, even in the high schools. If this be the
case--"
"You can be certain that it is," said Linda, "because Donald
whispered to me as he passed me half an hour ago, coming from the
school building, that TODAY Oka Sayye's hair is a uniform,
shining black, and he also thought that he had used a lipstick
and rouge in an effort at rejuvenation. Do you think, from your
knowledge of Donald, that he would imagine that?"
"No," said Judge Whiting, "I don't think such a thing would occur
to him unless he saw it."
"Neither do I," said Linda. "From the short acquaintance I have
with him I should not call him at all imaginative, but he is
extremely quick and wonderfully retentive. You have to show him
but once from which cactus he can get Victrola needles and
fishing hooks, or where to find material for wooden legs."
The Judge laughed. "Doesn't prove much," he said. "You wouldn't
have to show me that more than once either. If anyone were
giving me an intensive course on such interesting subjects, I
would guarantee to remember, even at my age."
Linda nodded in acquiescence. "Then you can regard it as quite
certain," she said, "that Oka Sayye is making up in an effort to
appear younger than he is which means that he doesn't want his
right questioned to be in our schools, to absorb the things that
we are taught, to learn our language, our government, our
institutions, our ideals, our approximate strength and our
only-too-apparent weakness."
The Judge leaned forward and waited attentively.
"The other matter," said Linda, "was relative to Saturday. There
may not be a thing in it, but sometimes a woman's intuition
proves truer than what a man thinks he sees and knows. I haven't
SEEN a thing, and I don't KNOW a thing, but I don't believe your
gardener was sick last week. I believe he had a dirty job he
wanted done and preferred to save his position and avoid risks by
getting some other Jap who had no family and no interests here,
to do it for him. I don't BELIEVE that your car, having run all
right Friday night, was shot to pieces Saturday morning so that
Donald went smash with it in a manner that might very easily have
killed him, or sent him to the hospital for months, while Oka
Sayye carried off the honors without competition I want to ask
you to find out whether your regular gardener truly was ill,
whether he has a family and interests to protect here, or whether
he is a man who could disappear in a night as Japs who have
leased land and have families cannot. I want to know about the
man who took your gardener's place, and I want the man who is
repairing your car interviewed very carefully as to what he found
the trouble with it."
Linda paused. Judge Whiting sat in deep thought, then he looked
at Linda.
"I see," he said at last. "Thank you very much for coming to me.
All these things and anything that develops from them shall be
handled carefully. Of course you know that Donald is my only son
and you can realize what he is to me and to his mother and
sister."
"It is because I do realize that," said Linda, "that I am here.
I appreciate his friendship, but it is not for my own interests
that I am asking to have him taken care of while he wages his
mental war with this Jap. I want Donald to have the victory, but
I want it to be a victory that will be an inspiration to any boy
of white blood among any of our allies or among peoples who
should be our allies. There's a showdown coming between the
white race and a mighty aggregation of colored peoples one of
these days, and if the white man doesn't realize pretty soon that
his supremacy is not only going to be contested but may be lost,
it just simply will be lost; that is all there is to it."
The Judge was studying deeply now. Finally he said: "Young
lady, I greatly appreciate your coming to me. There may be
NOTHING in what you fear. It MIGHT be a matter of national
importance. In any event, it shows that your heart is in the
right place. May Mrs. Whiting and I pay you a visit some day
soon in your home?"
"Of course," said Linda simply. "I told Donald to bring his
mother the first time he came, but he said he did not need to be
chaperoned when he came to see me, because my father's name was a
guarantee to his mother that my home would be a proper place for
him to visit."
"I wonder how many of his other girl friends invited him to bring
his mother to see them," said the Judge.
"Oh, he probably grew up with the other girls and was acquainted
with them from tiny things," said Linda.
"Very likely," conceded the Judge. "I think, after all, I would
rather have an invitation to make one of those trips with you to
the desert or the mountains. Is there anything else as
interesting as fish hooks and Victrola needles and wooden legs to
be learned?"
"Oh, yes," said Linda, leaning farther forward, a lovely color
sweeping up into her cheeks, her eyes a-shine. She had missed
the fact that the Judge was jesting. She had thought him in
sober, scientific earnest.
"It's an awfully nice thing if you dig a plant or soil your hands
in hunting, or anything like that, to know that there are four or
five different kinds of vegetable soap where you can easily reach
them, if you know them. If you lose your way or have a long
tramp, it's good to know which plants will give you drink and
where they are. And if you're short of implements, you might at
any time need a mescal stick, or an arrow shaft or an arrow,
even. If Donald were lost now, he could keep alive for days,
because he would know what wood would make him a bow and how he
could take amole fiber and braid a bow string and where he could
make arrows and arrow points so that he could shoot game for
food. I've taught him to make a number of snares, and he knows
where to find and how to cook his greens and potatoes and onions
and where to find his pickles and how to make lemonade and tea,
and what to use for snake bite. It's been such fun, Judge
Whiting, and he has been so interested."
"Yes, I should think he would be," said the Judge. "I am
interested myself. If you would take an old boy like me on a few
of those trips, I would be immensely pleased."
"You'd like brigand beefsteak," suggested Linda, "and you'd like
cress salad, and I am sure you'd like creamed yucca."
"Hm," said the Judge. "Sounds to me like Jane Meredith."
Linda suddenly sat straight. A dazed expression crossed her
face. Presently she recovered.
"Will you kindly tell me," she said, "what a great criminal judge
knows about Jane Meredith?"
"Why, I hear my wife and daughter talking about her," said the
Judge.
"I wonder," said Linda, "if a judge hears so many secrets that he
forgets what a secret is and couldn't possibly keep one to save
his life."
"On the other hand," said Judge Whiting, "a judge hears so many
secrets that he learns to be a very secretive person himself, and
if a young lady just your size and so like you in every way as to
be you, told me anything and told me that it was a secret, I
would guarantee to carry it with me to my grave, if I said I
would."
One of Linda's special laughs floated out of the windows. Her
right hand slipped across the table toward the Judge.
"Cross your heart and body?" she challenged.
The Judge took the hand she offered in both of his own.
"On my soul," he said, "I swear it."
"All right," bubbled Linda. "Judge Whiting, allow me to present
to you Jane Meredith, the author and originator of the Aboriginal
Cookery articles now running in Everybody's Home.',
Linda stood up as she made the presentation and the Judge arose
with her. When she bowed her dark head before him the Judge
bowed equally as low, then he took the hand he held and pressed
it against his lips.
"I am not surprised," he said. "I am honored, deeply honored,
and I am delighted. For a high school girl that is a splendid
achievement."
"But you realize, of course," said Linda, "that it is vicarious.
I really haven't done anything. I am just passing on to the
world what Alexander Strong found it interesting to teach his
daughter, because he hadn't a son."
"I certainly am fortunate that my son is getting the benefit of
this," said Judge Whiting earnestly. "There are girls who make
my old-fashioned soul shudder, but I shall rest in great comfort
whenever I know that my boy is with you."
"Sure!" laughed Linda. "I'm not vamping him. I don't know the
first principles. We're not doing a thing worse than sucking
'hunters' rock leek' or roasting Indian potatoes or fishing for
trout with cactus spines. I have had such a lovely time I don't
believe that I'll apologize for coming. But you won't waste a
minute in making sure about Oka Sayye?"
"I won't waste a minute," said the Judge.
CHAPTER XXII. The End of Marian's Contest
Coming from school a few days later on an evening when she had
been detained, Linda found a radiant Katy awaiting her.
"What's up, old dear?" cried Linda. "You seem positively
illumined."
"So be," said Katy. "It's a good time I'm havin'. In the first
place the previous boss of this place ain't nowise so bossy as
sue used to be, an' livin' with her is a dale aisier. An' then,
when Miss Eileen is around these days, she is beginning to see
things, and she is just black with jealousy of ye. Something
funny happened here the afternoon, an' she was home for once an'
got the full benefit of it. I was swapin' the aist walk, but I
know she was inside the window an' I know she heard. First,
comes a great big loaded automobile drivin' up, and stopped in
front with a flourish an' out hops as nice an' nate a lookin' lad
as ever you clapped your eyes on, an' up he comes to me an' off
goes his hat with a swape, an' he hands me that bundle an' he
says: 'Here's something Miss Linda is wantin' bad for her wild
garden.' "
Katy handed Linda a bundle of newspaper, inside which, wrapped in
a man's handkerchief, she found several plants, carefully lifted,
the roots properly balled, the heads erect, crisp, although in
full flower.
"Oh, Katy!" cried Linda. "Look, it's Gallito, 'little rooster'!"
"Now ain't them jist yellow violets?" asked Katy dubiously.
"No," said Linda, "they are not. They are quite a bit rarer.
They are really a wild pansy. Bring water, Katy, and help me."
"But I've something else for ye," said Katy.
"I don't care what you have," answered Linda. "I am just
compelled to park these little roosters at once."
"What makes ye call them that ungodly name?" asked Katy.
"Nothing ungodly about it," answered Linda. "It's funny.
Gallito is the Spanish name for these violets, and it means
'little rooster.' "
Linda set the violets as carefully as they had been lifted and
rinsed her hands at the hydrant.
"Now bring on the remainder of the exhibit," she ordered.
"It's there on the top of the rock pile, which you notice has
incrased since ye last saw it."
"So it has!" said Linda. "So it has! And beautifully colored
specimens those are too. My fern bed will lift up its voice and
rejoice in them. And rocks mean Henry Anderson. The box I do
not understand."
Linda picked it up, untied the string, and slipped off the
wrapping. Katy stared in wide-mouthed amazement.
"I was just tickled over that because Miss Eileen saw a goodlooking
and capable young man leave a second package, right on
the heels of young Whiting," she said. "Whatever have ye got,
lambie? What does that mean?"
Linda held up a beautiful box of glass, inside of which could be
seen swarming specimens of every bug, beetle, insect, and worm
that Henry Anderson had been able to collect in Heaven only knew
what hours of search. Linda opened the box. The winged
creatures flew, the bettles tumbled, the worms went over the top.
She set it on the ground and laughed to exhaustion. Her eyes
were wet as she looked up at Katy.
"That first night Henry Anderson and Peter Morrison were here to
dinner, Katy," she said, "Anderson made a joke about being my
bug-catcher when I built my home nest, and several times since he
has tried to be silly about it, but the last time I told him it
was foolishness to which I would listen no more, so instead of
talking, he has taken this way of telling me that he is fairly
expert as a bug-catcher. Really, it is awfully funny, Katy."
Katy was sober. She showed no appreciation of the fun.
"Ye know, lambie," she said, her hands on her hips, her elbows
wide-spread, her jaws argumentative, "I've done some blarneying
with that lad, an' I've fed him some, because he was doin' things
that would help an' please ye, but now I'm tellin' ye, just like
I'll be tellin' ye till I die, I ain't STRONG for him. If ever
the day comes when ye ask me to take on that Whiting kid for me
boss, I'll bow my head an' I'll fly at his bidding, because he is
real, he's goin' to come out a man lots like your pa, or hisn.
An' if ever the day comes when ye will be telling me ye want me
to serve Pater Morrison, I'll well nigh get on my knees to him.
I think he'd be the closest we'd ever come to gettin' the master
back. But I couldn't say I'd ever take to Anderson. They's
something about him, I can't just say what, but he puts me back
up amazin'."
"Don't worry, ancient custodian of the family," said Linda.
"That same something in Henry Anderson that antagonizes you,
affects me in even stronger degree. You must not get the foolish
notion that any man has a speculative eye on me, because it is
not true. Donald Whiting is only a boy friend, treating me as a
brother would, and Peter Morrison is much too sophisticated and
mature to pay any serious attention to a girl with a year more
high school before her. I want to be decent to Henry Anderson,
because he is Peter's architect, and I'm deeply interested in
Peter's house and the lady who will live in it. Sometimes I hope
it will be Donald's sister, Mary Louise. Anyway, I am going to
get acquainted with her and make it my business to see that she
and Peter get their chance to know each other well. My job for
Peter is to help run his brook at the proper angle, build his
bridge, engineer his road, and plant his grounds; so don't be
dreaming any foolish dreams, Katy."
Katy folded her arms, tilted her chin at an unusually aspiring
angle, and deliberately sniffed.
"Don't ye be lettin' yourself belave your own foolishness," she
said. "I ain't done with me exhibit yet. On the hall table ye
will find a package from the Pater Morrison man that Miss Eileen
had the joy of takin' in and layin' aside for ye, an atop of it
rists a big letter that I'm thinkin' might mean Miss Marian."
"Oh," cried Linda. "Why are you wasting all this time? If there
is a letter from Marian it may mean that the competition is
decided; but if it is, she loses, because she was to telegraph if
she won."
Linda rushed into the house and carried her belongings to her
workroom. She dropped them on the table and looked at them.
"I'll get you off my mind first," she said to the Morrison
package, which enclosed a new article entitled "How to Grow Good
Citizens." With it was a scrawled line, "I'm leaving the head
and heels of the future to you."
"How fine!" exulted Linda. "He must have liked the head and tail
pieces I drew for his other article, so he wants the same for
this, and if he is well paid for his article, maybe in time,
after I've settled for my hearth motto, he will pay me something
for my work. Gal-lum-shus!"
As she opened the letter from Marian she slowly shook her head.
"Drat the luck," she muttered, "no good news here."
Slowly and absorbedly she read:
DEAREST LINDA:
No telegram to send. I grazed the first prize and missed the
second because Henry Anderson wins with plans so like mine that
they are practically duplicates. I have not seen the winning
plans. Mr. Snow told me as gently as he could that the judges
had ruled me out entirely. The winning plans are practically a
reversal of mine, more
professionally drawn, and no doubt the specifications are far
ahead of mine, as these are my weak spot, although I have worked
all day and far into the night on the mathematics of house
building. Mr. Snow was very kind, and terribly cut up about it.
I made what I hope was a brave fight, I did so believe in those
plans that I am afraid to say just how greatly disappointed I am.
All I can do is to go to work again and try to find out how to
better my best, which I surely put into the plans I submitted. I
can't see how Henry Anderson came to hit upon some of my personal
designs for comforts and conveniences. I had hoped that no man
would think of my especial kitchen plans. I rather fancied
myself as a benefactor to my sex, an emancipator from drudgery,
as it were. I had a concealed feeling that it required a woman
who had expended her strength combating the construction of a
devilish kitchen, to devise some of my built-in conveniences, and
I worked as carefully on my kitchen table, as on any part of the
house. If I find later that the winning plans include these
things I shall believe that Henry Anderson is a mind reader, or
that lost plans naturally gravitate to him. But there is no use
to grouch further. I seem to be born a loser. Anyway, I haven't
lost you and I still have Dana Meade.
I have nothing else to tell you except that Mr. Snow has waited
for me two evenings out of the week ever since I wrote you, and
he has taken me in his car and simply forced me to drive him for
an hour over what appeals to me to be the most difficult roads he
could select. So far I have not balked at anything but he has
had the consideration not to direct me to the mountains. He is
extremely attractive, Linda, and I do enjoy being with him, but I
dread it too, because his grief is so deep and so apparent that
it constantly keeps before me the loss of my own dear ones, and
those things to which the hymn books refer as "aching voids" in
my own life.
But there is something you will be glad to hear. That unknown
correspondent of mine is still sending letters, and I am crazy
about them. I don't answer one now until I have mulled over it
two or three days and I try to give him as good as he sends.
I judge from your letters that you are keeping at least even with
Eileen, and that life is much happier for you. You seem to be
broadening. I am so glad for the friendship you have formed with
Donald Whiting. My mother and Mrs. Whiting were friends. She is
a charming woman and it has seemed to me that in her daughter
Louise she has managed a happy compound of old-fashioned
straightforwardness and unswerving principle, festooned with
happy trimmings of all that is best in the present days. I hope
that you do become acquainted with her. She is older than you,
but she is the kind of girl I know you would like.
Don't worry because I have lost again, Linda dear. Today is my
blue day. Tomorrow I shall roll up my sleeves and go at it again
with all my might, and by and by it is written in the books that
things will come right for me. They cannot go wrong for ever.
With dearest love,
MARIAN.
Linda looked grim as she finished the letter.
"Confound such luck," she said emphatically. "I do not
understand it. How can a man like Henry Anderson know more about
comforts and conveniences in a home than a woman with Marian's
experience and comprehension? And she has been gaining
experience for the past ten years. That partner of his must be a
six-cylinder miracle."
Linda went to the kitchen, because she was in pressing need of
someone to whom to tell her troubles, and there was no one except
Katy. What Katy said was energetic and emphatic, but it
comforted Linda, because she agreed with it and what she was
seeking at the minute was someone who agreed with her. As she
went back upstairs, she met Eileen on her way to the front door.
Eileen paused and deliberately studied Linda's face, and Linda
stopped and waited quietly until she chose to speak.
"I presume," said Eileen at last, "that you and Katy would call
the process through which you are going right now, 'taking the
bit in your teeth,' or some poetic thing like that, but I can't
see that you are getting much out of it. I don't hear the old
laugh or the clatter of gay feet as I did before all this war of
dissatisfaction broke out. This minute if you haven't either
cried, or wanted to, I miss my guess."
"You win," said Linda. "I have not cried, because I make it a
rule never to resort to tears when I can help it; so what you see
now is unshed tears in my heart. They in no way relate to what
you so aptly term my 'war of dissatisfaction'; they are for
Marian. She has lost again, this time the Nicholson and Snow
prize in architecture."
"Serves her right," said Eileen, laughing contemptuously. "The
ridiculous idea of her trying to compete in a man's age-old
occupation! As if she ever could learn enough about joists and
beams and girders and installing water and gas and electricity to
build a house. She should have had the sense to know she
couldn't do it."
"But," said Linda quietly, "Marian wasn't proposing to be a
contractor, she only wants to be an architect. And the man who
beat her is Peter Morrison's architect, Henry Anderson, and he
won by such a narrow margin that her plans were thrown out of
second and third place, because they were so very similar to his.
Doesn't that strike you as curious?"
"That is more than curious," said Eileen slowly. "That is a very
strange coincidence. They couldn't have had anything from each
other, because they only met at dinner, before all of us, and
Marian went away the next morning; it does seem queer." Then she
added with a flash of generosity and justice, "It looks pretty
good for Marian, at that. If she came so near winning that she
lost second and third because she was too near first to make any
practical difference, I must be wrong and she must be right."
"You are wrong," said Linda tersely, "if you think Marian cannot
make wonderful plans for houses. But going back to what my 'war
of dissatisfaction' is doing to me, it's a pale affair compared
with what it is doing to you, Eileen. You look a debilitated
silhouette of the near recent past. Do you feel that badly about
giving up a little money and authority?"
"I never professed to have the slightest authority over you,"
said Eileen very primly, as she drew back in the shadows. "You
have come and gone exactly as you pleased. All I ever tried to
do was to keep up a decent appearance before the neighbors and
make financial ends meet."
"That never seemed to wear on you as something seems to do now,"
said Linda. "I am thankful that this week ends it. I was
looking for you because I wanted to tell you to be sure not to
make any date that will keep you from meeting me at the office of
the president of the Consolidated Bank Thursday afternoon. I am
going to arrange with John to be there and it shouldn't take
fifteen minutes to run through matters and divide the income in a
fair way between us. I am willing for you to go on paying the
bills and ordering for the house as you have been."
"Certainly you are," sneered Eileen. "You are quite willing for
all the work and use the greater part of my time to make you
comfortable."
Linda suddenly drew back. Her body seemed to recoil, but her
head thrust forward as if to bring her eyes in better range to
read Eileen's face.
"That is utterly unjust, Eileen," she cried.
Then two at a time she rushed the stairs in a race for her room.
CHAPTER XXIII. The Day of Jubilee
Linda started to school half an hour earlier Wednesday morning
because that was the day for her weekly trip to the Post Office
for any mail which might have come to her under the name of Jane
Meredith. She had hard work to keep down her color when she
recognized the heavy gray envelope used by the editor of
Everybody's Home. As she turned from the window with it in her
fingers she was trembling slightly and wondering whether she
could have a minute's seclusion to face the answer which her last
letter might have brought. There was a small alcove beside a
public desk at one side of the room. Linda stepped into this,
tore open the envelope and slipped out the sheet it contained.
Dazedly she stared at the slip that fell from it. Slowly the
color left her cheeks and then came rushing back from her
surcharged heart until her very ears were red, because that slip
was very manifestly a cheque for five hundred dollars. Mentally
and physically Linda shook herself, then she straightened to full
height, tensing her muscles and holding the sheet before her with
a hand on each side to keep it from shaking, while she read:
MY DEAR MADAM:
I sincerely apologize for having waited so long before writing
you of the very exceptional reception which your articles have
had. I think one half their attraction has been the exquisite
and appealing pictures you have sent for their illustration. At
the present minute they are forming what I consider the most
unique feature in the magazine. I am enclosing you a cheque for
five hundred dollars as an initial payment on the series. Just
what the completed series should be worth I am unable to say
until you inform me how many months you can keep it up at the
same grade of culinary and literary interest and attractive
illustration; but I should say at a rough estimate that you would
be safe in counting upon a repetition of this cheque for every
three articles you send in. This of course includes payment for
the pictures also, which are to me if anything more attractive
than the recipes, since the local color and environment they add
to the recipe and the word sketch are valuable in the extreme.
If you feel that you can continue this to the extent of even a
small volume, I shall be delighted to send you a book contract.
In considering this proposition, let me say that if you could not
produce enough recipes to fill a book, you could piece it out to
the necessary length most charmingly and attractively by
lengthening the descriptions of the environment in which the
particular fruits and vegetables you deal with are to be found;
and in book form you might allow yourself much greater latitude
in the instructions concerning the handling of the fruits and the
preparation of the recipes. I think myself that a wonderfully
attractive book could be made from this material, and hope that
you will agree with me. Trusting that this will be satisfactory
to you and that you will seriously consider the book proposition
before you decline it, I remain, my dear madam, Very truly yours,
HUGH THOMPSON,
Editor, Everybody's Home.
Gripping the cheque and the letter, Linda lurched forward against
the window casement and shut her eyes tight, because she could
feel big, nervous gulps of exultation and rejoicing swelling up
in her throat. She shifted the papers to one hand and
surreptitiously slipped the other to her pocket. She tried to
keep the papers before her and looked straight from the window to
avoid attracting attention. The tumult of exultation in her
heart was so wild that she did not surely know whether she wanted
to sink to the floor, lay her face against the glass, and indulge
in what for generations women have referred to as "a good cry,"
or whether she wanted to leap from the window and sport on the
wind like a driven leaf.
Then she returned the letter and cheque to the envelope, and
slipped it inside her blouse, and started on her way to school.
She might as well have gone to Multiflores Canyon and pitted her
strength against climbing its walls for the day, for all the good
she did in her school work. She heard no word of any recitation
by her schoolmates. She had no word ready when called on for a
recitation herself. She heard nothing that was said by any of
the professors. On winged feet she was flying back and forth
from the desert to the mountains, from the canyons to the sea.
She was raiding beds of amass and devising ways to roast the
bulbs and make a new dish. She was compounding drinks from
mescal and bisnaga. She was hunting desert pickles and trying to
remember whether Indian rhubarb ever grew so far south. She was
glad when the dismissal hour came that afternoon. With eager
feet she went straight to the Consolidated Bank and there she
asked again to be admitted to the office of the president. Mr.
Worthington rose as she came in.
"Am I wrong in my dates?" he inquired. "I was not expecting you
until tomorrow."
"No, you're quite right," said Linda. "At this hour tomorrow.
But, Mr. Worthington, I am in trouble again."
Linda looked so distressed that the banker pushed a chair to the
table's side for her, and when she had seated herself, he said
quietly: "Tell me all about it, Linda. We must get life
straightened out as best we can."
"I think I must tell you all about it," said Linda, "because I
know just enough about banking to know that I have a proposition
that I don't know how to handle. Are bankers like father
confessors and doctors and lawyers?"
"I think they are even more so," laughed Mr. Worthington.
"Perhaps the father confessor takes precedence, otherwise I
believe people are quite as much interested in their financial
secrets as in anything else in all this world. Have you a
financial secret?"
"Yes," said Linda, "I have what is to me a big secret, and I
don't in the least know how to handle it, so right away I thought
about you and that you would be the one to tell me what I could
do."
"Go ahead," said Mr. Worthington kindly. "I'll give you my word
of honor to keep any secret you confide to me."
Linda produced her letter. She opened it and without any
preliminaries handed it and the cheque to the banker. He looked
at the cheque speculatively, and then laid it aside and read the
letter. He gave every evidence of having read parts of it two or
three times, then he examined the cheque again, and glanced at
Linda.
"And just how did you come into possession of this, young lady?"
he inquired. "And what is it that you want of me?"
"Why, don't you see?" said Linda. "It's my letter and my cheque;
I'm 'Jane Meredith.' Now how am I going to get my money.
For one dazed moment Mr. Worthington studied Linda; then he threw
back his head and laughed unrestrainedly. He came around the
table and took both Linda's hands.
"Bully for you !" he cried exultantly. "How I wish your father
could see the seed he has sown bearing its fruit. Isn't that
fine? And do you want to go on with this anonymously?"
"I think I must," said Linda. "I have said in my heart that no
Jap, male or female, young or old, shall take first honors in a
class from which I graduate; and you can see that if people
generally knew this, it would make it awfully hard for me to go
on with my studies, and I don't know that the editor who is
accepting this work would take it if he knew it were sent him by
a high-school Junior. You see the dignified way in which he ad
dresses me as 'madam'?"
"I see," said Mr. Worthington reflectively.
"I'm sure," said Linda with demure lips, though the eyes above
them were blazing and dancing at high tension, "I'm sure that the
editor is attaching a husband, and a house having a well-ordered
kitchen, and rather wide culinary experience to that 'dear
madam.'"
"And what about this book proposition?" asked the banker gravely.
"That would be a big thing for a girl of your age. Can you do
it, and continue your school work?"
"With the background I have, with the unused material I have, and
with vacation coming before long, I can do it easily," said
Linda. "My school work is not difficult for me. It only
requires concentration for about two hours in the preparation
that each day brings. The remainder of the time I could give to
amplifying and producing new recipes."
"I see," said the banker. "So you have resolved, Linda, that you
don't want your editor to know your real name."
"Could scarcely be done," said Linda.
"But have you stopped to think," said the banker, "that you will
be asked for personal history and about your residence, and no
doubt a photograph of yourself. If you continue this work
anonymously you're going to have trouble with more matters than
cashing a cheque."
"But I am not going to have any trouble cashing a cheque," she
said, "because I have come straight to the man whose business is
cheques."
"True enough," he said; "I SHALL have to arrange the cheque;
there's not a doubt about that; and as for your other bugbears "
"I refuse to be frightened by them," interposed Linda.
"Have you ever done any business at the bank?"
"No," said Linda.
"None of the clerks know you?"
"Not that I remember," said Linda. "I might possibly be
acquainted with some of them. I have merely passed through the
bank on my way to your room twice."
"Then," said the banker, "we'll have to risk it. After this
estate business is settled you will want to open an account in
your name."
"Quite true," said Linda.
"Then I would advise you," said Mr. Worthington, "to open this
account in your own name. Endorse this cheque 'Jane Meredith'
and make it payable to me personally. Whenever one
of these comes, bring it to me and I'll take care of it for you.
One minute."
He left Linda sitting quietly reading and rereading her letter,
and presently returned and laid a sheaf of paper money before
her.
"Take it to the paying teller. Tell him that you wish to deposit
it, and ask him to give you a bank book and a cheque book," he
said. "Thank you very much for coming to me and for confiding in
me."
Linda gathered up the money, and said good-bye to the banker.
Just as she started forward she recognized Eileen at the window
of the paying teller. It was an Eileen she never before had
seen. Her face was strained to a ghastly gray. Her hat was not
straight and her hands were shaking. Without realizing that she
was doing it, Linda stepped behind one of the huge marble pillars
supporting the ceiling and stood there breathlessly, watching
Eileen. She could gather that she was discussing the bank ledger
which lay before the teller and that he was refusing something
that Eileen was imploring him to do. Linda thought she
understood what it was. Then very clearly Eileen's voice, sharp
and strained, reached her ears.
"You mean that you are refusing to pay me my deposits on my
private account?" she cried; and Linda could also hear the
response.
"I am very sorry if it annoys or inconveniences you, Miss Strong,
but since the settlement of the estate takes place to
morrow, our orders are to pay out no funds in any way connected
with the estate until after that settlement has been arranged."
"But this is my money, my own private affair," begged Eileen.
"The estate has nothing to do with it."
"I am sorry," repeated the teller. "If that is the case, you
will have no difficulty in establishing the fact in a few
minutes' time."
Eileen turned and left the bank, and it seemed that she was
almost swaying. Linda stood a second with narrowed eyes, in deep
thought.
"I think," she said at last, deep down in her heart, "that it
looks precious much as if there had been a bit of transgression
in this affair. It looks, too, as if 'the way of the
transgressor' were a darned hard way. Straight ahead open and
aboveboard for you, my girl!"
Then she went quietly to the desk and transacted her own
business; but her beautiful day was clouded. Her heart was no
longer leaping exultantly. She was sickened and sorrowful over
the evident nerve strain and discomfort which Eileen seemed to
have brought upon herself. She dreaded meeting her at dinner
that night, and she wondered all the way home where Eileen had
gone from the bank and what she had been doing. What she felt
was a pale affair compared with what she would have felt if she
could have seen Eileen leave the bank and enter a near-by store,
go to a telephone booth and put in a long-distance call for San
Francisco. Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks by nature redder
than the rouge she had used upon them. She squared her
shoulders, lifted her head, as if she irrevocably had made a
decision and would not be thwarted in acting upon it. While she
waited she straightened her hat, and tucked up her pretty hair,
once more evincing concern about her appearance. After a nervous
wait she secured her party.
"Am I speaking with Mr. James Heitman?" she asked.
"Yes," came the answer.
"Well, Uncle Jim, this is Eileen."
"Why, hello, girlie," was the quick response. "Delighted that
you're calling your ancient uncle. Haven't changed the decision
in the last letter I had from you, have you?"
"Yes," said Eileen, "I have changed it. Do you and Aunt Caroline
still want me, Uncle Jim?"
"YOU BET WE WANT YOU!" roared the voice over the 'phone. "Here
we are, with plenty of money and not a relation on earth but you
to leave it to. You belong to us by rights. We'd be tickled to
death to have you, and for you to have what's left of the money
when we get through with it. May I come after you? Say the
word, and I'll start this minute."
"Oh, Uncle Jim, could you? Would you?" cried Eileen.
"Well, I'd say I could. We'd be tickled to death, I tell you!"
"How long would it take you to get here?" said Eileen.
"Well, I could reach you by noon tomorrow. Eleven something is
the shortest time it's been made in; that would give me thirteen
--more than enough. Are you in that much of a hurry?"
"Yes," gasped Eileen, "yes, I am in the biggest kind of a hurry
there is, Uncle Jim. This troublesome little estate has to be
settled tomorrow afternoon. There's going to be complaint about
everything that I have seen fit to do. I've been hounded and
harassed till I am disgusted with it. Then I've promised to
marry John Gilman as I wrote you, and I don't believe you would
think that was my best chance with the opportunities you could
give me. It seems foolish to stay here, abused as I have been
lately, and as I will be tomorrow. You have the house number.
If you come and get me out of it by noon tomorrow, I'll go with
you. You may take out those adoption papers you have always
entreated me to agree to and I'll be a daughter that you can be
proud of. It will be a relief to have some real money and some
real position, and to breathe freely and be myself once more."
"All right for you, girlie!" bellowed the great voice over the
line. "Pick up any little personal bits you can put in a
suitcase, and by twelve o'clock tomorrow I'll whisk you right out
of that damn mess."
Eileen walked from the telephone booth with her head high,
triumph written all over her face and figure. They were going to
humiliate her. She would show them!
She went home immediately. Entering her room, she closed the
door and stood looking at her possessions. How could she get her
trunk from the garret? How could she get it to the station?
Would it be possible for Uncle James to take it in his car? As
she pondered these things Eileen had a dim memory of a day in her
childhood when her mother had gone on business to San Francisco
and had taken her along. She remembered a huge house, all
turrets and towers and gables, all turns and twists and angles,
closed to the light of day and glowing inside with shining
artificial lights. She remembered stumbling over deep rugs. One
vivid impression was of walls covered with huge canvases, some of
them having frames more than a foot wide. She remembered knights
in armor, and big fireplaces, and huge urns and vases. It seemed
to her like the most wonderful bazaar she ever had been in. She
remembered, too, that she had been glad when her mother had taken
her out into the sunshine again and from the presence of two
ponderous people who had objected strongly to everything her
mother had discussed with them. She paused one instant,
contemplating this picture. The look of triumph on her face
toned down considerably. Then she comforted herself aloud.
"I've heard Mother say," she said softly, "that everybody overdid
things and did not know how to be graceful with immense fortunes
got from silver and gold mines, and lumber. It will be different
now. Probably they don't live in the same house, even. There is
a small army of servants, and there is nothing I can think of
that Uncle Jim won't gladly get me. I've been too big a fool for
words to live this way as long as I have. Crush me, will they?
I'll show them! I won't even touch these things I have strained
so to get."
Eileen jerked from her throat the strand of pearls that she had
worn continuously for four years and threw it contemptuously on
her dressing table.
"I'll make Uncle Jim get me a rope with two or three strands in
it that will reach to my waist. 'A suitcase !' I don't know what
I would fill a suitcase with from here. The trunk may stay in
the garret, and while I am leaving all this rubbish, I'll just
leave John Gilman with it. Uncle Jim will give me an income that
will buy all the cigarettes I want without having to deceive
anyone; and I can have money if I want to stake something at
bridge without being scared into paralysis for fear somebody may
find it out or the accounts won't balance. I'll put on the most
suitable thing I have to travel in, and just walk out and leave
everything else."
That was what Eileen did. At noon the next day her eyes were
bright with nervousness. Her cheeks alternately paled with fear
and flooded red with anxiety. She had dressed herself carefully,
laid out her hat and gloves and a heavy coat in case the night
should be chilly. Once she stood looking at the dainty, brightly
colored dresses hanging in her wardrobe A flash of regret passed
over her face.
"Tawdry little cheap things and makeshifts," she said. "If Linda
feels that she has been so terribly defrauded, she can help
herself now!"
By twelve o'clock she found herself standing at the window,
straining her eyes down Lilac Valley. She was not looking at its
helpful hills, at its appealing curves, at its brilliant colors.
She was watching the roadway. When Katy rang to call her to
lunch, she told her to put the things away; she was expecting
people who would take her out to lunch presently. In the past
years she had occasionally written to her uncle. Several times
when he had had business in Los Angeles she had met him at his
hotel and dined with him. She reasoned that he would come
straight to the house and get her, and then they would go to one
of the big hotels for lunch before they started.
"I shan't feel like myself," said Eileen, "until we are well on
the way to San Francisco."
At one o'clock she was walking the floor. At two she was almost
frantic. At half past she almost wished that she had had the
good sense to have some lunch, since she was very hungry and
under tense nerve strain. Once she paused before the glass, but
what she saw frightened her. Just when she felt that she could
not endure the strain another minute, grinding brakes, the blast
of a huge Klaxon, and the sound of a great voice arose from the
street. Eileen rushed to the window. She took one look, caught
up the suitcase and raced down the stairs. At the door she met a
bluff, big man, gross from head to foot. It seemed to Eileen
strange that she could see in him even a trace of her mother, and
yet she could. Red veins crossed his cheeks and glowed on his
nose. His tired eyes were watery; his thick lips had an
inclination to sag; but there was heartiness in his voice and
earnestness in the manner in which he picked her up.
"What have they been doing to you down here?" he demanded.
"Never should have left you this long. Ought to have come down
and taken you and showed you what you wanted, and then you would
have known whether you wanted it or not."
At this juncture a huge woman, gross in a feminine way as her
husband was in his, paddled up the walk.
"I'm comin' in and rest a few minutes," she said. "I'm tired to
death and I'm pounded to pieces."
Her husband turned toward her. He opened his lips to introduce
Eileen. His wife forestalled him.
"So this is the Eileen you have been ravin' about for years," she
said. "I thought you said she was a pretty girl."
Eileen's soul knew one sick instant of recoil. She looked from
James Heitman to Caroline, his wife, and remembered that he had a
habit of calling her "Callie." All that paint and powder and
lipstick and brilliantine could do to make the ponderous, big
woman more ghastly had been done, but in the rush of the long
ride through which her husband had forced her, the colors had
mixed and slipped, the false waves were displaced. She was not
in any condition to criticize the appearance of another woman.
For one second Eileen hesitated, then she lifted her shaking
hands to her hat.
"I have been hounded out of my senses," she said apologetically,
"and have been so terribly anxious for fear you wouldn't get here
on time. Please, Aunt Caroline, let us go to a hotel, some place
where we can straighten up comfortably."
"Well, what's your hurry?" said Aunt Caroline coolly. "You're
not a fugitive from justice, are you? Can't a body rest a few
minutes and have a drink, even? Besides, I am going to see what
kind of a place you've been living in, and then I'll know how
thankful you'll be for what we got to offer."
Eileen turned and threw open the door. The big woman walked in.
She looked down the hall, up the stairway, and went on to the
living room. She gave it one contemptuous glance, and turning,
came back to the door.
"All right, Jim," she said brusquely. "I have seen enough. If
you know the best hotel in the town, take me there. And then, if
Eileen's in such a hurry, after we have had a bite we'll start
for home."
"Thank you, Aunt Caroline, oh, thank you!" cried Eileen.
"You needn't take the trouble to 'aunt' me every time you speak
to me," said the lady. "I know you're my niece, but I ain't
goin' to remind you of it every time I speak to you. It's
agein', this 'auntie' business. I don't stand for it, and as for
a name, I am free to confess I always like the way Jim calls me
'Callie.' That sounds younger and more companionable than
'Caroline.' "
James Heitman looked at Eileen and winked.
"You just bet, old girl!" he said. "They ain't any of them can
beat you, not even Eileen at her best. Let's get her out of
here. Does this represent your luggage, girlie?"
"You said not to bother with anything else," said Eileen.
"So I did," said Uncle Jim, "and I meant just what I said if it's
all right with you. I suppose I did have, in the back of my
head, an idea that there might be a trunk or a box--some things
that belonged to your mother, mebby, and your 'keepsakes.'"
"Oh, never mind," interrupted Eileen. "Do let's go. It's nearly
four o'clock. Any minute they may send for me from the bank, and
I'd be more than glad to be out of the way."
"Well, I'm not accustomed to being the porter, but if time's that
precious, here we go," said Uncle Jim.
He picked up the suitcase with one hand and took his wife's arm
with the other.
"Scoot down there and climb into that boat," he said proudly to
Eileen. "We'll have a good dinner in a private room when we get
to the hotel. I won't even register. And then we'll get out of
here when we have rested a little."
"Can't we stay all night and go in the morning?" panted his wife.
"No, ma'am, we can't," said James Heitman authoritatively.
"We'll eat a bite because we need to be fed up, and I sincerely
hope they's some decent grub to be had in this burg. The first
place we come to outside of here, that looks like they had a
decent bed, we'll stop and make up for last night. But we ain't
a-goin' to stay here if Eileen wants us to start right away, eh,
Eileen?"
"Yes, please!" panted Eileen. "I just don't want to meet any of
them. It's time enough for them to know what has happened after
I am gone."
"All right then," said Uncle James. "Pile in and we'll go."
So Eileen started on the road to the unlimited wealth her soul
had always craved.
CHAPTER XXIV. Linda's First Party
At the bank Linda and John Gilman waited an hour past the time
set for Eileen's appearance. Then Linda asserted herself.
"I have had a feeling for some time," she said quietly, "that
Eileen would not appear today, and if she doesn't see fit to
come, there is no particular reason why she should. There is
nothing to do but go over the revenue from the estate. The books
will show what Eileen has drawn monthly for her expense budget.
That can be set aside and the remainder divided equally between
us. It's very simple. Here is a letter I wrote to the
publishers of Father's books asking about royalties. I haven't
even opened it. I will turn it in with the remainder of the
business."
They were in the office with the president of the bank. He rang
for the clerk he wanted and the books he required, and an hour's
rapid figuring settled the entire matter, with the exception of
the private account, amounting to several thousands, standing in
Eileen's name. None of them knew any source of separate income
she might have. At a suggestion from Linda, the paying teller
was called in and asked if he could account for any of the funds
that had gone into the private account.
"Not definitely," he said, "but the amounts always corresponded
exactly with the royalties from the books. I strongly suspect
that they constitute this private account of Miss Eileen's."
But he did not say that she had tried to draw it the day
previous.
John Gilman made the suggestion that they should let the matter
rest until Eileen explained about it. Then Linda spoke very
quietly, but with considerable finality in her tone.
"No," she said, "I know that Eileen HAD no source of private
income. Mother used to mention that she had some wealthy
relatives in San Francisco, but they didn't approve of her
marriage to what they called a 'poor doctor,' and she would never
accept, or allow us to accept, anything from them. They never
came to see us and we never went to see them. Eileen knows no
more about them than I do. We will work upon the supposition
that everything that is here belonged to Father. Set aside to
Eileen's credit the usual amount for housekeeping expenses. Turn
the private account in with the remainder. Start two new bank
books, one for Eileen and one for me. Divide the surplus each
month exactly in halves. And I believe this is the proper time
for the bank to turn over to me a certain key, specified by my
father as having been left in your possession to be delivered to
me on my coming of age."
With the key in her possession, Linda and John Gilman left the
bank. As they stood for a moment in front of the building,
Gilman removed his hat and ran his hands through his hair as if
it were irritating his head.
"Linda," he said in a deeply wistful tone, "I don't understand
this. Why shouldn't Eileen have come today as she agreed? What
is there about this that is not according to law and honor and
the plain, simple rights of the case?"
"I don't know," said Linda; "but there is something we don't
understand about it. And I am going to ask you, John, as my
guardian, closing up my affairs today, to go home with me to be
present when I open the little hidden door I found at the back of
a library shelf when I was disposing of Daddy's technical books.
There was a slip of paper at the edge of it specifying that the
key was in possession of the Consolidated Bank and was to be
delivered to me, in the event of Daddy's passing, on my coming of
age. I have the key, but I would like to have you with me, and
Eileen if she is in the house, when I open that door. I don't
know what is behind it, but there's a certain feeling that always
has been strong in my heart and it never was so strong as it is
at this minute."
So they boarded the street car and ran out to Lilac Valley. When
Katy admitted them Linda put her arm around her and kissed her.
She could see that the house was freshly swept and beautifully
decorated with flowers, and her trained nostrils could scent
whiffs of delicious odors from food of which she was specially
fond. In all her world Katy was the one person who was
celebrating her birthday. She seemed rather surprised when Linda
and Gilman came in together.
"Where is Eileen?" inquired Linda.
"She must have made some new friends," said Katy. "About four
o'clock, the biggest car that ever roared down this street rolled
up, and the biggest man and woman that I ever see came puffin'
and pantin' in. Miss Eileen did not tell me where she was goin'
or when she would be back, but I know it won't be the night,
because she took her little dressin' case with her. Belike it's
another of them trips to Riverside or Pasadena."
"Very likely," said Linda quietly. "Katy, can you spare a few
minutes?"
"No, lambie, I jist can't," said Katy, "because a young person
that's the apple of me eye is havin' a birthday the day and I
have got me custard cake in the oven and the custard is in the
makin', and after Miss Eileen went and I didn't see no chance for
nothin' special, I jist happened to look out, one of the ways ye
do things unbeknownst to yourself, and there stood Mr. Pater
Morrison moonin' over the 'graveyard,' like he called it, and it
was lookin' like seein' graves he was, and I jist took the bull
by the horns, and I sings out to him and I says: 'Mr. Pater
Morrison, it's a good friend ye were to the young missus when ye
engineered her skylight and her beautiful fireplace, and this
bein' her birthday, I'm takin' the liberty to ask ye to come to
dinner and help me celebrate.' And he said he would run up to the
garage and get into his raygimentals, whatever them might be, and
he would be here at six o'clock. So ye got a guest for dinner,
and if the custard's scorched and the cake's flat, it's up to ye
for kapin' me here to tell ye all this."
Then Katy hurried to the kitchen. Linda looked at John Gilman
and smiled.
"Isn't that like her?" she said.
Then she led the way to the library, pulled aside the books,
fitted the key to the little door, and opened it. Inside lay a
single envelope, sealed and bearing her name. She took the
envelope, and walking to her father's chair beside his library
table, sat down in it, and laying the envelope on the table,
crossed her hands on top of it.
"John," she said, "ever since I have been big enough to think and
reason and study things out for myself, there is a feeling I have
had--I used to think it was unreasonable, then I thought it
remote possibility. This minute I think it's extremely probable.
Before I open this envelope I am going to tell you what I believe
it contains. I have not the slightest evidence except personal
conviction, but I believe that the paper inside this envelope is
written by my father's hand and I believe it tells me that he was
not Eileen's father and that I am not her sister. If it does not
say this, then there is nothing in race and blood and inherited
tendencies."
Linda picked up the paper cutter, ran it across the envelope,
slipped out the sheet, and bracing herself she read:
MY DARLING LINDA:
These lines are to tell you that your mother went to her eternal
sleep when you were born. Four years later I met and fell in
love with the only mother you ever have known. At the time of
our marriage we entered into a solemn compact that her little
daughter by a former marriage and mine should be reared as
sisters. I was to give half my earnings and to do for Eileen
exactly as I did for you. She was to give half her love and her
best attention to your interests.
I sincerely hope that what I have done will not result in any
discomfort or inconvenience to you.
With dearest love, as ever your father,
ALEXANDER STRONG.
Linda laid the sheet on the table and dropped her hands on top of
it. Then she looked at John Gilman.
"John," she said, "I believe you had better face the fact that
the big car and the big people that carried Eileen away today
were her mother's wealthy relatives from San Francisco. She must
have been in touch with them. I think very likely she sent for
them after I saw her in the bank yesterday afternoon, trying with
all her might to make the paying teller turn over to her the
funds of the private account."
John Gilman sat very still for a long time, then he raised tired,
disappointed eyes to Linda's face.
"Linda," he said, "do you mean you think Eileen was not straight
about money matters?"
"John," said Linda quietly, "I think it is time for the truth
about Eileen between you and me. If you want me to answer that
question candidly, I'll answer it."
˘"I want the truth," said John Gilman gravely.
"Well," said Linda, "I never knew Eileen to be honest about
anything in all her life unless the truth served her better than
an evasion. Her hair was not honest color and it was not honest
curl. Her eyebrows were not so dark as she made them. Her
cheeks and lips were not so red, her forehead and throat were not
so white, her form was not so perfect. Her friends were selected
because they could serve her. As long as you were poor and
struggling, Marian was welcome to you. When you won a great case
and became prosperous and fame came rapidly, Eileen took you. I
believe what I told you a minute ago: I think she has gone for
good. I think she went because she had not been fair and she
would not be forced to face the fact before you and me and the
president of the Consolidated today. I think you will have to
take your heart home tonight and I think that before the night is
over you will realize what Marian felt when she knew that in
addition to having been able to take you from her, Eileen was not
a woman who would make you happy. I am glad, deeply g]ad, that
there is not a drop of her blood in my veins, sorry as I am for
you and much as I regret what has happened. I won't ask you to
stay tonight, because you must go through the same black waters
Marian breasted, and you will want to be alone. Later, if you
think of any way I can serve you, I will be glad for old sake's
sake; but you must not expect me ever to love you or respect your
judgment as I did before the shadow fell."
Then Linda rose, replaced the letter, turned the key in the lock,
and quietly slipped out of the room.
When she opened her door and stepped into her room she paused in
astonishment. Spread out upon the bed lay a dress of georgette
with little touches of fur and broad ribbons of satin. In color
it was like the flame of seasoned beechwood. Across the foot of
the bed hung petticoat, camisole, and hose, and beside the dress
a pair of satin slippers exactly matching the hose, and they
seemed the right size. Linda tiptoed to the side of the bed and
delicately touched the dress, and then she saw a paper lying on
the waist front, and picking it up read:
Lambie, here's your birthday, from loving old Katy.
The lines were terse and to the point. Linda laid them down, and
picking up the dress she walked to the mirror, and holding it
under her chin glanced down the length of its reflection. What
she saw almost stunned her.
"Oh, good Lord!" she said. "I can't wear that. That isn't me."
Then she tossed the dress on the bed and started in a headlong
rush to the kitchen. As she came through the door, "You blessed
old darling!" she cried. "What am I going to say to make you
know how I appreciate your lovely, lovely gift?"
Katy raised her head. There was something that is supposed to be
the prerogative of royalty in the lift of it. Her smile was
complacent in the extreme.
"Don't ye be standin' there wastin' no time talkie'," she said.
"I have oodles of time," said Linda, "but I warn you, you won't
know me if I put on that frock, Katy."
"Yes, I will, too," said Katy.
"Katy," said Linda, sobering suddenly, "would it make any great
difference to you if I were the only one here for always, after
this?"
Katy laughed contemptuously.
"Well, I'd warrant to survive it," she said coolly.
"But that is exactly what I must tell you, Katy," said Linda
soberly. "You know I have told you a number of times through
these years that I did not believe Eileen and I were sisters, and
I am telling you now that I know it. She did not come to the
bank today, and the settlement of Father's affairs developed the
fact that I was my father's child and Eileen was her mother's;
and I'm thinking, Katy, that the big car you saw and the opulent
people in it were Eileen's mother's wealthy relatives from San
Francisco. My guess is, Katy, that Eileen has gone with them for
good. Lock her door and don't touch her things until we know
certainly what she wants done with them."
Katy stood thinking intently, then she lifted her eyes to
Linda's.
"Lambie," she whispered softly, "are we ixpicted to go into
mourning over this?"
A mischievous light leaped into Linda's eyes.
"Well, if there are any such expectations abroad, Katherine
O'Donovan," she said soberly, "the saints preserve 'em, for we
can't fulfill 'em, can we, Katy?"
"Not to be savin' our souls," answered Katy heartily. "I'm jist
so glad and thankful that I don't know what to do, and it's such
good news that I don't belave one word of it. And while you're
talkie', what about John Gilman?"
"I think," said Linda quietly, "that tonight is going to teach
him how Marian felt in her blackest hours."
"Well, he needn't be coming to me for sympathy," said Katy. "But
if Miss Eileen has gone to live with the folks that come after
her the day, ye might be savin' a wee crap o' sympathy for her,
lambie. They was jist the kind of people that you'd risk your
neck slidin' down a mountain to get out of their way."
"That is too bad," said Linda reflectively; "because Eileen is
sensitive and constant contact with crass vulgarity certainly
would wear on her nerves."
"Now you be goin' and gettin' into that dress, lambie," said
Katy.
"Katherine O'Donovan," said Linda, "you're used to it; come again
to confession. Tell me truly where and how did you get that
dress?"
"'Tain't no rule of polite society to be lookin' gift horses in
the mouth," said Katy proudly. "HOW I got it is me own affair,
jist like ye got any gifts ye was ever makin' me, is yours.
WHERE I got it? I went into the city on the strafe car and I
went to the biggest store in the city and I got in the elevator
and I says to the naygur: 'Let me off where real ladies buy
ready-to-wear dresses.'
"And up comes a little woman, and her hair was jist as soft and
curling round her ears, and brown and pretty was her eyes, and
the pink that God made was in her cheeks, and in a voice like
runnin' water she says: 'Could I do anything for you?' I told
her what I wanted. And she says: 'How old is the young lady,
and what's her size, and what's her color?' Darlin', ain't that
dress the answer to what I told her?"
"Yes," said Linda. "If an artist had been selecting a dress for
me he would probably have chosen that one. But, old dear, it's
not suitable for me. It's not the kind of dress that I intended
to wear for years and years yet. Do you think, if I put it on
tonight, I'll ever be able to go back to boots and breeches
again, and hunt the canyons for plants to cook for--you know
what?"
Katy stood in what is commonly designated as a "brown study."
Then she looked Linda over piercingly.
"Yes, ma'am," she said conclusively. "It's my judgment that ye
will. I think ye'll maybe wrap the braids of ye around your head
tonight, and I think ye'll put on that frock, and I think ye'll
show Pater Morrison how your pa's daughter can sit at the head of
his table and entertain her friends. Then I think ye'll hang it
in your closet and put on your boots and breeches and go back to
your old Multiflores and attind to your business, the same as
before."
"All right, Katy," said Linda, "if you have that much faith in me
I have that much faith in myself; but, old dear, I can't tell you
how I LOVE having a pretty dress for tonight. Katy dear, the
'Day of Jubilee' has come. Before you go to sleep I'm coming to
your room to tell you fine large secrets, that you won't believe
for a minute, but I haven't the time to do it now."
Then Linda raced to her room and began dressing. She let down
the mop of her hair waving below her waist and looked at it
despairingly.
"That dress never was made for braids down your back," she said,
glancing toward the bed where it lay shimmering in a mass of
lovely color. "I am of age today; for state occasions I should
be a woman. What shall I do with it?"
And then she recalled Katy's voice saying: "Braids round your
head."
"Of course," said Linda, "that would be the thing to do. I
certainly don't need anything to add to my height; I am far too
tall now."
So she parted her hair in the middle, brushed it back, divided it
in even halves, and instead of braiding it, she coiled it around
her head, first one side and then the other.
She slipped into the dress and struggled with its many and
intricate fastenings. Then she went to the guest room to stand
before the full-length mirror there. Slowly she turned.
Critically she examined herself.
"It's a bit shorter than I would have ordered it," she said, "but
it reduces my height, it certainly gives wonderful freedom in
walking, and it's not nearly so short as I see other girls
wearing."
Again she studied herself critically.
"Need some kind of ornament for my hair," she muttered, "but I
haven't got it, and neither do I own beads, bracelet, or a ring;
and my ears are sticking right out in the air. I am almost
offensively uncovered."
Then she went down to show herself to a delighted Katy. When the
doorbell rang Linda turned toward the hall. Katy reached a
detaining hand.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," she said. "I answered the bell
for Miss Eileen. Answer the bell I shall for you."
Down the hall went Katy with the light of battle in her eyes and
the air of a conqueror in the carriage of her head. She was well
trained. Neither eyelid quivered as she flung the door wide to
Peter Morrison. He stood there in dinner dress, more imposing
than Katy had thought he could be. With quick, inner exultation
she reached for two parcels he carried; over them her delight was
so overpowering that Peter Morrison must have seen a hint of it.
With a flourish Katy seated him, and carried the packages to
Linda. She returned a second later for a big vase, and in this
Linda arranged a great sheaf of radiant roses. As Katy started
to carry them back to the room, Linda said "Wait a second," and
selecting one half opened, she slipped it out, shortened the stem
and tucked it among the coils of hair where she would have set an
ornament. The other package was a big box that when opened
showed its interior to be divided into compartments in each of
which nestled an exquisite flower made of spun sugar. The
petals, buds, and leaves were perfect. There were wonderful
roses with pale pink outer petals and deeper-colored hearts.
There were pink mallows that seemed as if they must have been cut
from the bushes bordering Santa Monica road. There were
hollyhocks of white and gold, and simply perfect tulips. Linda
never before had seen such a treasure candy box. She cried out
in delight, and hurried to show Katy. In her pleasure over the
real flowers and the candy flowers Linda forgot her dress, but
when she saw Peter Morrison standing tall and straight, in dinner
dress, she stopped and looked the surprise and pleasure she felt.
She had grown accustomed to Peter in khaki pottering around his
building. This Peter she never before had seen. He represented
something of culture, something of pride, a conformity to a nice
custom and something more. Linda was not a psychoanalyst.
She could not see a wonderful aura of exquisite color enveloping
Peter. But when Peter saw the girl approaching him, transformed
into a woman whose shining coronet was jewelled with his living
red rose, when he saw the beauty of her lithe slenderness clothed
in a soft, flaming color, something emanated from his inner
consciousness that Linda did see, and for an instant it disturbed
her as she went forward holding out her hands.
"Peter," she said gaily, "do you know that this is my Day of
Jubilee? I am a woman today by law, Peter. Hereafter I am to
experience at least a moderate degree of financial freedom, and
that I shall enjoy. But the greatest thing in life is friends."
Peter took both the hands extended to him and looked smilingly
into her eyes.
"You take my breath," he said. "I knew, the first glimpse I ever
had of you scrambling from the canyon floor, that this
transformation COULD take place. My good fortune is beyond words
that I have been first to see it. Permit me, fair lady."
Peter bent and kissed both her hands. He hesitated a second,
then he turned the right hand and left one more kiss in its palm.
"To have and to hold!" he said whimsically.
"Thank you," said Linda, closing her fist over it and holding it
up for inspection. "I'll see that it doesn't escape. And this
minute I thank you for the candy, which I know is delicious, and
for my very first sheaf of roses from any man. See what I have
done with one of them?"
She turned fully around that he might catch the effect of the
rose, and in getting that he also got the full effect of the
costume, and the possibilities of the girl before him. And then
she gave him a shock.
"Isn't it a lovely frock?" she said. "Another birthday gift from
the Strong rock of ages. I have been making a collection of
rocks for my fern bed, and I have got another collection that is
not visible to anyone save myself. Katy's a rock, and you're a
rock, and Donald is a rock, and Marian's a rock, and I am resting
securely on all of you. I wish my father knew that in addition
to Marian and Katy I have found two more such wonderful friends."
"And what about Henry Anderson?" inquired Peter. "Aren't you
going to include him?"
Linda walked over to the chair in which she intended to seat
herself.
"Peter," she said, "I wish you hadn't asked me that."
Peter's figure tensed suddenly.
"Look here, Linda," he said sternly, "has that rather bold
youngster made himself in any way offensive to you?"
"Not in any way that I am not perfectly capable of handling
myself," said Linda. She looked at Peter confidently.
"Do you suppose," she said, "that I can sit down in this thing
without ruining it? Shouldn't I really stand up while I am
wearing it?"
Peter laughed unrestrainedly.
"Linda, you're simply delicious," he said. "It seems to me that
I have seen young ladies in like case reach round and gather the
sash to one side and smooth out the skirt as they sit."
"Thank you, Peter, of course that would be the way," said Linda.
"This being my first, I'm lacking in experience."
And thereupon she sat according to direction; while Peter sat
opposite her.
"Now finish. Just one word more about Henry Anderson," he said.
"Are you perfectly sure there is nothing I need do for you in
that connection?"
"Oh, perfectly," said Linda lightly. "I didn't mean to alarm
you. He merely carried that bug-catcher nonsense a trifle too
far. I wouldn't have minded humoring him and fooling about it a
little. But, Peter, do you know him quite well? Are you very
sure of him?"
"No," said Peter, "I don't know him well at all. The only thing
I am sure about him is that he is doing well in his profession.
I chose him because he was an ambitious youngster and I thought I
could get more careful attention from him than I could from some
of the older fellows who had made their reputation. You see,
there are such a lot of things I want to know about in this
building proposition, and the last four years haven't been a time
for any man to be careful about saving his money."
"Then," said Linda, "he is all right, of course. He must be.
But I think I'm like a cat. I'm very complacent with certain
people, but when I begin to get goose flesh and hair prickles my
head a bit, I realize that there is something antagonistic
around, something for me to beware of. I guess it's because I am
such a wild creature."
"Do you mean to say," said Peter, "that these are the sensations
that Henry gives you?"
Linda nodded.
"Now forget Henry," she said. "I have had such a big day I must
tell you about it, and then we'll come to that last article you
left me. I haven't had time to put anything on paper concerning
it yet, but I believe I have an awfully good idea in the paint
pot, and I'll find time in a day or two to work it out. Peter, I
have just come from the bank, where I was recognized as of legal
age, and my guardian discharged. And perhaps I ought to explain
to you, Peter, that your friend, John Gilman, is not here because
this night is going to be a bad one for him. When you knew him
best he was engaged, or should have been, to Marian Thorne. When
you met him this time he really was engaged to Eileen. I don't
know what you think about Eileen. I don't feel like influencing
anyone's thought concerning her, so I'll merely say that today
has confirmed a conviction that always has been in my heart.
Katy could tell you that long ago I said to her that I did not
believe Eileen was my sister. Today has brought me the knowledge
and proof positive that she is not, and today she has gone to
some wealthy relatives of her mother in San Francisco. She
expressed her contempt for what she was giving up by leaving
everything, including the exquisite little necklace of pearls
which has been a daily part of her since she owned them. I may
be mistaken, but intuition tells me that with the pearls and the
wardrobe she has also discarded John Gilman. I think your friend
will be suffering tonight quite as deeply as my friend suffered
when John abandoned her at a time when she had lost everything
else in life but her money. I feel very sure that we won't see
Eileen any more. I hope she will have every lovely thing in
life."
"Amen," said Peter Morrison earnestly. "I loved John Gilman when
we were in school together, but I have not been able to feel,
since I located here, that he is exactly the same John; and what
you have told me very probably explains the difference in him."
When Katy announced dinner Linda arose.
Peter Morrison stepped beside her and offered his arm. Linda
rested her finger tips upon it and he led her to the head of the
table and seated her. Then Katy served a meal that, if it had
been prepared for Eileen, she would have described as a banquet.
She gave them delicious, finely flavored food, stimulating,
exquisitely compounded drinks that she had concocted from the
rich fruits of California and mints and essences at her command.
When, at the close of the meal, she brought Morrison some of the
cigars Eileen kept for John Gilman, she set a second tray before
Linda, and this tray contained two packages. Linda looked at
Katy inquiringly, and Katy, her face beaming, nodded her sandy
red head emphatically.
"More birthday gifts you've havin', me lady," she said in her
mellowest Irish voice.
"More?" marveled Linda. She picked up the larger package, and
opening it, found a beautiful book inscribed from her friend
Donald, over which she passed caressing fingers.
"Why, how lovely of him!" she said. "How in this world did he
know?"
Katherine O'Donovan could have answered that question, but she
did not. The other package was from Marian. When she opened it
Linda laughed unrestrainedly.
"What a joke!" she said. "I had promised myself that I would not
touch a thing in Eileen's room, and before I could do justice to
Katy's lovely dress I had to go there for pins for my hair and
powder for my nose. This is Marian's way of telling me that I am
almost a woman. Will you look at this?"
"Well, just what is it?" inquired Peter.
"Hairpins," laughed Linda, "and hair ornaments, and a box of face
powder, and the little, feminine touches that my dressing table
needs badly. How would you like, Peter, to finish your cigar in
my workroom?"
"I would like it immensely," said Peter.
So together they climbed to the top of the house. Linda knelt
and made a little ceremony of lighting the first fire in her
fireplace. She pushed one of her chairs to one side for Peter,
and taking the other for herself, she sat down and began the
process of really becoming acquainted with him. Two hours later,
as he was leaving her, Peter made a circuit of the room,
scrutinizing the sketches and paintings that were rapidly
covering the walls, and presently he came to the wasp. He looked
at it so closely that he did not miss even the stinger. Linda
stood beside him when he made his first dazed comment: "If that
isn't Eileen, and true to the life!"
"I must take that down," said Linda. "I did it one night when my
heart was full of bitterness."
"Better leave it," said Peter drily.
"Do you think I need it as a warning?" asked Linda.
Peter turned and surveyed her slowly.
"Linda," he said quietly, "what I think of you has not yet been
written in any of the books."
CHAPTER XXV. Buena Moza
As soon as Peter had left her Linda took her box of candy flowers
and several of her finest roses and went to Katy's room. She
found Katy in a big rocking chair, her feet on a hassock, reading
a story in Everybody's home. When her door opened and she saw
her young mistress framed in it she tossed the magazine aside and
sprang to her feet, but Linda made her resume her seat. The girl
shortened the stems of the roses and put them in a vase on Katy's
dresser.
"They may clash with your coloring a mite, Mother Machree," she
said, "but by themselves they are very wonderful things, aren't
they?"
Linda went over, and drawing her dress aside, sat down on the
hassock and leaning against Katy's knee she held up the box of
candy flowers for amazed and delighted inspection.
"Ah, the foine gintleman!" cried Katy. "Sure 'twas only a pape I
had when ye opened the box, an' I didn't know how rare them
beauties railly was."
"Choose the one you like best," said Linda.
But Katy would not touch the delicate things, so Linda selected a
brushy hollyhock for her and then sat at her knee again.
"Katherine O'Donovan," she said solemnly, "it's up to a couple of
young things such as we are, stranded on the shoals of the
Pacific as we have been, to put our heads together and take
counsel. You're a host, Katy, and while I am taking care of you,
I'll be just delighted to have you go on looking after your black
sheep; but it's going to be lonely, for all that. After Eileen
has taken her personal possessions, what do you say to fixing up
that room with the belongings that Marian kept, and inviting her
to make that suite her home until such time as she may have a
home of her own again?"
"Foine!" cried Katy. "I'd love to be havin' her. I'd agree to
take orders from Miss Marian and to be takin' care of her jist
almost the same as I do of ye, Miss Linda. The one thing I don't
like about it is that it ain't fair nor right to give even Marian
the best. Ye be takin' that suite yourself, lambie, and give
Miss Marian your room all fixed up with her things, or, if ye
want her nearer, give her the guest room and make a guest room of
yours."
"I am willing to follow either of the latter suggestions for
myself," said Linda; "it might be pleasant to be across the hall
from Marian where we could call back and forth to each other. I
wouldn't mind a change as soon as I have time to get what I'd
need to make the change. I'll take the guest room for mine, and
you may call in a decorator and have my room freshly done and the
guest things moved into it."
Katy looked belligerent. Linda reached up and touched the
frowning lines on her forehead.
"Brighten your lovely features with a smile, Katherine me dear,"
she said gaily. "Don't be forgetting that this is our Day of
Jubilee. We are free--I hope we are free forever--from petty
annoyances and dissatisfactions and little, galling things that
sear the soul and bring out all the worst in human nature. I
couldn't do anything to Eileen's suite, not even if I resorted to
tearing out partitions and making it new from start to finish,
that would eliminate Eileen from it for me. If Marian will give
me permission to move and install her things in it, I think she
can use it without any such feeling, but I couldn't. It's agreed
then, Katy, I am to write to Marian and extend to her a welcome
on your part as well as on mine?"
"That ye may, lambie," said Katy heartily. "And, as the boss
used to be sabin', just to make assurance doubly sure, if YoU
would address it for me I would be writing' a bit of a line
myself, conveying' to her me sentiments on the subject."
"Oh, fine, Katy; Marian would be delighted!" cried Linda,
springing up.
"And, Katy dear, it won't make us feel any more like mourning for
Eileen when I tell you that it developed at the bank yesterday
and today, that since she has been managing household affairs she
has deposited in a separate account all the royalties from
Father's books. I had thought the matter closed at the bank when
this fund was added to the remainder of the estate, the household
expenses set aside to Eileen, and the remainder divided equally
between us. I didn't get the proof that she was not my sister
until after I came home. I think it means that I shall have to
go back to the bank, have the matter reopened, and unless she can
produce a will or something proving that she is entitled to it,
it seems to me that what remains of my father's estate is legally
mine. Of course, if it develops that he has made any special
provision for her, she shall have it; otherwise, Katy, we'll be
in a position to install you as housekeeper and put some
light-footed, capable young person under you for a step-saver in
any direction you want to use her. It means, too, that I shall
be able to repay your loan immediately and to do the things that
I wanted to do about the house."
"Now I ain't in any hurry about that money, lambie," said Katy;
"and you understand of course that the dress you're wearing' I am
given' ye."
"Of course, old dear, and you should have seen Peter Morrison
light up and admire it. He thinks you have wonderful taste,
Katy."
Katy threw up both her hands.
"Oh, my Lord, lambie!" she cried, aghast. "Was you telling' him
that the dress ye were wearing' was a present from your old
cook?"
"Why, certainly I was," said Linda, wide eyed with astonish meet.
"Why shouldn't I? I was proud to. And now, old dear, before I
go, the biggest secret of all. I had a letter, Katy, from the
editor of Everybody's Home, and people like our articles, KatY;
they are something now and folk are letting the editor know about
it, and he wants all I can send him. He likes the pictures I
make; and, Katy, you won't believe it till I show you my little
bank book, but for the three already published with their
illustrations he pays me five hundred nice, long, smooth,
beautifully decorated, paper dollars!"
"Judas praste!" cried Katy, her hands once more aloft. "Ye ain't
manin' it, lambie?"
"Yes, I are," laughed Linda. "I've got the money; and for each
succeeding three with their pictures I am to have that much more,
and when I finish- -now steady yourself, Katy, because this is
going to be a shock--when I finish, blessed old dear heart, he is
going to make them into a book! That will be my job for this
summer, and you shall help me, and it will be a part of our great
secret. Won't it be the most fun?"
"My soul!" said Katy. "You're jist crazy. I don't belave a word
you're telling' me."
"But I can prove it, because I have the letter and the bank
book," said Linda.
Katy threw her arms around the girl and kissed the top of her
head and cried over her and laughed at the same time and patted
her and petted her and ended by saying: "Oh, lambie, if only the
master could be knowin' it."
"But he does know, Katy," said Linda.
She went to her room, removed the beautiful dress and, arranging
it on a hanger, left it in her closet. Slipping into an old
dressing gown, she ran to her workroom and wrote a letter to
Marian from herself. She tried not to tell Marian the big, vital
thing that was throbbing in her heart all day concerning her
work, the great secret that meant such a wonderful thing to her,
the thing that was beating in her heart and fluttering behind her
lips like a bird trying to escape its cage; but she could tell
her in detail of Eileen's undoubted removal to San Francisco; she
could tell her enough of the financial transactions of the day to
make her
understand what had been happening in the past; and she could
tell of her latest interview with John Gilman. Once, as she sat
with her pen poised, thinking how to phrase a sentence, Linda
said to herself: "I wonder in my heart if he won't try to come
crawfishing back to Marian now, and if he does, I wonder, oh, how
I wonder, what she will do." Linda shut her lips very tight and
stared up through her skylight to the stars, as she was fast
falling into a habit of doing when she wanted inspiration.
"Well, I know one thing," she said to the shining things above
her, "Marian will do as she sees fit, of course, but if it were
I, and any man had discarded me as John Gilman discarded Marian,
in case he ever wanted to pick me up again he would find I was
not there. Much as I plan in my heart for the home and the man
and the little people that I hope to have some day, I would give
up all of them before I would be discarded and re-sought like
that; and knowing Marian as I do, I have a conviction that she
will feel the same way. From the things she is writing about
this Snow man I think it is highly probable that he may awake
some day to learn that he is not so deeply grieved but that he
would like to have Marian to comfort him in his loneliness; and
as for his little girl I don't see where he could find a woman
who would rear her more judiciously and beautifully than Marian
would."
She finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and then, taking
out a fresh sheet, she lettered in at the top of it, "INDIAN
POTATOES" and continued:
And very good potatoes they are. You will find these growing
everywhere throughout California, blooming from May to July,
their six long, slender, white petals shading to gold at the
base, grayish on the outside, a pollen-laden pistil upstanding,
eight or ten gold-clubbed stamens surrounding it, the slender
brown stem bearing a dozen or more of these delicate blooms,
springing high from a base of leaves sometimes nearly two feet
long and an inch broad, wave margined, spreading in a circle
around it. In the soil of the plains and the dry hillsides you
will find an amazingly large solid bulb, thickly enwrapped in a
coat of brown fiber, the long threads of which can be braided,
their amazing strength making them suitable for bow strings,
lariats, or rope of any kind that must needs be improvised for
use at the moment. The bulbs themselves have many uses. Crushed
and rubbed up in water they make a delightful cleansing lather.
The extracted juice, when cooked down, may be used as glue. Of
the roasted bulbs effective poultices for bruises and boils may
be made. It was an Indian custom to dam a small stream and throw
in mashed Amole bulbs, the effect of which was to stupefy the
fish so that they could be picked out by hand; all of which does
not make it appear that the same bulb would serve as an excellent
substitute for a baked potato; but we must remember how our
grandmothers made starch from our potatoes, used them to break in
the new ironware, and to purify the lard; which goes to prove
that one vegetable may be valuable for many purposes. Amole,
whose ponderous scientific name is Chlorogalum pomeridiarum, is
at its best for my purposes when all the chlorophyll from flower
and stem has been driven back to the bulb, and it lies ripe and
fully matured from late August until December.
Remove the fibrous cover down to the second or third layer
enclosing the bulb. These jackets are necessary as they keep the
bulbs from drying out and having a hard crust. Roast them
exactly as you would potatoes. When they can easily be pierced
with a silver fork remove from the oven, and serve immediately
with any course with which you would use baked potatoes.
"And gee, but they're good!" commented Linda as she reread what
she had written.
After that she turned her attention to drawing a hillside
whitened here and there with amole bloom showing in its purity
against the warm grayish-tan background. The waving green leaves
ran among big rocks and overlapped surrounding growth. At the
right of her drawing Linda sketched in a fine specimen of monkey
flower, deepening the yellow from the hearts of the amole lilies
for the almost human little monkey faces. On the left one giant
specimen of amole, reared from a base of exquisitely waving
leaves, ran up the side of the drawing and broke into an airy and
graceful head of gold-hearted white lilies. For a long time
Linda sat with poised pencil, studying her foreground. What
should she introduce that would be most typical of the location
and gave her the desired splash of contrasting color that she
used as a distinctive touch in the foreground of all her
drawings?
Her pencil flew busily a few minutes while she sketched in a
flatly growing bush of prickly phlox, setting the flower faces as
closely as the overlapped scales of a fish, setting them even as
they grow in nature; and when she resorted to the color box she
painted these faces a wonderful pink that was not wild rose, not
cerise, not lilac, but it made one think of all of them. When
she could make no further improvement on this sketch, she
carefully stretched it against the wall and tacked it up to dry.
Afterward she cleared her mental decks of all the work she could
think of in order to have Saturday free, because Saturday was the
day upon which she found herself planning in the back of her mind
throughout the strenuous week, to save for riding the King's
Highway with Donald Whiting. Several times she had met him on
the walks or in the hallways, and always he had stopped to speak
with her and several times he had referred to the high hope in
which he waited for Saturday. Linda already had held a
consultation with Katy on the subject of the lunch basket. That
matter being satisfactorily arranged, there was nothing for her
to do but to double on her work so that Saturday would be free.
Friday evening Linda was called from the dinner table to the
telephone. She immediately recognized the voice inquiring for
her as that of Judge Whiting, and then she listened breathlessly
while he said to her: "You will recognize that there is very
little I may say over a telephone concerning a matter to which
you brought my attention. I have a very competent man looking
into the matter thoroughly, and I find that your fear is amply
justified. Wherever you go or whatever you do, use particular
care. Don't have anything to do with any stranger. Just use
what your judgment and common sense tell you is a reasonable
degree of caution in every direction no matter how trivial. You
understand?"
"I do," said Linda promptly. "Would you prefer that we do not go
on any more Saturday trips at present?"
The length of time that the Judge waited to answer proved that he
had taken time to think.
"I can't see," he said finally, "that you would not be safer on
such a trip where you are moving about, where no one knows who
you arc, than you would where you are commonly found."
"All right then," said Linda. "Ask the party we are considering
and he will tell you where he will be tomorrow. Thank you very
much for letting me know. If anything should occur, you will
understand that it was something quite out of my range of
fore-sight."
"I understand," said the Judge.
With all care and many loving admonitions Katy assisted in the
start made early Saturday morning. The previous Saturday Linda
had felt that all nature along the road she planned to drive
would be at its best, but they had not gone far until she
modified her decision. They were slipping through mists of early
morning, over level, carefully made roads like pavilion floors.
If any one objection could have been made, it would have been
that the mists of night were weighting too heavily to earth the
perfume from the blooming orchards and millions of flowers in
gardens and along the roadside. At that hour there were few cars
abroad. Linda was dressed in her outing suit of dark green. She
had removed her hat and slipped it on the seat beside her. She
looked at Donald, a whimsical expression on her most expressive
young face.
"Please to 'scuse me," she said lightly, "if I step on the gas a
mite while we have the road so much to ourselves and are so
familiar with it. Later, when we reach stranger country and have
to share with others, we'll be forced to go slower."
"Don't stint your speed on account of me," said Donald. "I am
just itching to know what Kitty can do."
"All right, here's your chance," said Linda. "Hear her purr?"
She settled her body a trifle tensely, squared her shoulders, and
gripped the steering wheel. Then she increased the gas and let
the Bear Cat roll over the smooth road from Lilac Valley running
south into Los Angeles. At a speed that was near to flying as a
non-professional attains, the youngsters traveled that road.
Their eyes were shining; their blood was racing. Until the point
where rougher roads and approaching traffic forced them to go
slower, they raced, and when they slowed down they looked at each
other and laughed in morning delight.
"I may not be very wise," said Linda, "but didn't I do the
smartest thing when I let Eileen have the touring car and saved
the Bear Cat for us?"
"Nothing short of inspiration," said Donald. "The height of my
ambition is to own a Bear Cat. If Father makes any mention of
anything I would like particularly to have for a graduation
present, I am cocked and primed as to what I shall tell him."
"You'd better save yourself a disappointment," said Linda
soberly. "You will be starting to college this fall, and when
you do you will be gone nine months out of the year, and I am
fairly sure your father wouldn't think shipping a Bear Cat back
and forth a good investment, or furnishing you one to take to
school with you. He would fear you would never make a grade that
would be a credit to him if he did."
"My!" laughed Donald, "you've got a long head on your shoulders!"
"When you're thrown on your own for four of the longest,
lonesomest years of your life, you learn to think," said Linda
soberly.
She was touching the beginning of Los Angeles traffic. Later she
was on the open road again. The mists were thinning and lifting.
The perfume was not so heavy. The sheeted whiteness of the
orange groves was broken with the paler white of plum merging
imperceptibly into the delicate pink of apricot and the stronger
pink of peach, and there were deep green orchards of smooth waxen
olive foliage and the lacy-leaved walnuts. Then came the citrus
orchards again, and all the way on either hand running with them
were almost uninterrupted miles of roses of every color and kind,
and everywhere homes ranging from friendly mansions, all written
over in adorable flower color with the happy invitation, "Come in
and make yourself at home," to tiny bungalows along the wayside
crying welcome to this gay pair of youngsters in greetings
fashioned from white and purple wisteria, gold bignonia, every
rose the world knows, and myriad brilliant annual and perennial
flower faces gathered from the circumference of the tropical
globe and homing enthusiastically on the King's Highway.
Sometimes Linda lifted her hand from the wheel to wave a passing
salute to a particularly appealing flower picture. Sometimes she
whistled a note or cried a greeting to a mockingbird, a rosy
finch, or a song sparrow.
"Look at the pie timber!" she cried to Donald, calling his
attention to a lawn almost covered with red-winged blackbirds.
"Four hundred and twenty might be baked in that pie," she
laughed.
Then a subtle change began to creep over the world. The sun
peered over the mountains inquiringly, a timid young thing, as if
she were asking what degree of light and warmth they would like
for the day. A new brilliancy tinged every flower face in this
light, a throbbing ecstasy mellowed every bird note; the orchards
dropped farther apart, meadows filled with grazing cattle flashed
past them, the earthy scent of freshly turned fields mingled with
flower perfume, and on their right came drifting in a cool salt
breath from the sea. At mid-forenoon, as they neared Laguna,
they ran past great hills, untouched since the days when David
cried: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence
cometh my help." At one particularly beautiful range, draped
with the flowing emerald of spring, decorated with beds of gold
poppy, set with flowering madrona and manzanita, with the gold of
yellow monkey flower or the rich red of the related species, with
specimens of lupin growing in small trees, here and there
adventurous streams singing and flashing their unexpected way to
the mother breast of the waiting ocean very near to the road
which at one surprising turn carried them to the never-ending
wonder of the troubled sea, they drove as slowly as the Bear Cat
would consent to travel, so that they might study great boulders,
huge as many of the buildings they had passed, their faces
scarred by the wrack of ages. Studying their ancient records one
could see that they had been familiar with the star that rested
over Bethlehem. On their faces had shone the same moon that
opened the highways Journeying into Damascus. They had stood the
storms that had beaten upon the world since the days when the
floods subsided, the land lifted above the face of the waters in
gigantic upheavals that had ripped the surface of the globe from
north to south and forced up the hills, the foothills, and the
mountains of the Coast Range. They had been born then, they had
first seen the light of day, in glowing, molten, red-hot,
high-piled streams of lava that had gushed forth in that awful
evolution of birth.
Sometimes Linda stopped the car, they left it, and climbed over
the faces of these mighty upheavals. Once Linda reached her hand
to Donald and cried, half laughingly, half in tense earnest:
"Oh, kid, we have got to hurry. Compared with the age of these,
we've only a few minutes. It's all right to talk jestingly about
'the crack of doom' but you know there really was a crack of
doom, and right here is where it cracked and spewed out the
material that hardened into these very rocks. Beside them I feel
as a shrimp must feel beside a whale, and I feel that we must
hurry."
"And so we must," said Donald. "I'm hungry as Likeliest when he
waited for them to find enough peacock tongues to satisfy his
appetite."
"I wonder what brand of home-brew made him think of that," said
Linda.
"Well, you know," said Donald, "the world was only a smallish
place then. They didn't have to go far to find everything to
which they had access, and it must have been rather a decent time
in which to live. Awful lot of light and color and music and
unique entertainment."
"You're talking," said Linda, "from the standpoint of the king or
the master. Suppose you had lived then and had been the slave."
"There you go again," said Donald, "throwing a brick into the
most delicate mechanism of my profound thought. You ought to be
ashamed to round me up with something scientific and
materialistic every time I go a-glimmering. Don't you think this
would be a fine place to have lunch?"
"You wait and see where we lunch today, and you will have the
answer to that," said Linda, starting back to the Bear Cat.
A few miles farther on they followed the road around the frowning
menace of an overhanging rock and sped out directly to the
panorama of the sea. The sun was shining on it, but, as always
round the Laguna shore, the rip tide was working itself into
undue fury. It came dashing up on the ancient rocks until one
could easily understand why a poet of long ago wrote of sea
horses. Some of the waves did suggest monstrous white chargers
racing madly to place their feet upon the solid rock.
Through the village, up the steep inclines, past placid lakes,
past waving yellow mustard beds, beside highways where the
breastplate of Mother Earth gleamed emerald and ruby against the
background of billions of tiny, shining diamonds of the iceplant,
past the old ostrich tree reproduced by etchers of note the world
over, with grinding brakes, sliding down the breathless declivity
leading to the shore, Linda stopped at last where the rock walls
lifted sheer almost to the sky. She led Donald to a huge circle
carpeted with cerise sand verbena, with pink and yellow iceplant
bloom, with jewelled iceplant foliage, with the running blue of
the lovely sea daisy, with the white and pink of the sea fig,
where the walls were festooned with ferns, lichens, studded all
over with flaming Our Lord's Candles, and strange, uncanny,
grotesque flower forms, almost human in their writhing turns as
they twisted around the rocks and slipped along clinging to the
sheer walls. Just where the vegetation met the white, sea-washed
sand, Linda spread the Indian blanket, and Donald brought the
lunch box. At their feet adventurous waves tore themselves to
foam on the sharp rocks. On their left they broke in booming
spray, tearing and fretting the base of cliffs that had stood
impregnable through aeons of such ceaseless attack and repulse.
"I wonder," said Donald, "how it comes that I have lived all my
life in California, and today it seems to me that most of the
worthwhile things I know about her I owe to you. When I go to
college this winter t.he things I shall be telling the boys will
be how I could gain a living, if I had to, on the desert, in
Death Valley, from the walls of Multiflores Canyon; and how the
waves go to smash on the rocks of Laguna, not to mention cactus
fish hooks, mescal sticks, and brigand beefsteak. It's no wonder
the artists of all the world come here copying these pictures.
It's no wonder they build these bungalows and live here for
years, unsatisfied with their efforts to reproduce the pictures
of the Master Painter of them all."
"I wonder," said Linda, "if anybody is very easily satisfied. I
wonder today if Eileen is satisfied with being merely rich. I
wonder if we are satisfied to have this golden day together. I
wonder if the white swallows are satisfied with the sea. I
wonder if those rocks are satisfied and proud to stand
impregnable against the constant torment of the tide."
"I wonder, oh, Lord, how I wonder," broke in Donald, "about
Katherine O'Donovan's lunch box. If you want a picture of per
feet satisfaction, Belinda beloved, lead me to it!"
"Thank heaven you're mistaken," she said; "they spared me the
'Be'--. It's truly just 'Linda."'
"Well, I'm not sparing you the 'Be--'," said Donald, busy with
the fastenings of the lunch basket. "Did you hear where I used
it?"
"Yes, child, and I like it heaps," said Linda casually. "It's
fine to have you like me. Awfully proud of myself."
"You have two members of our family at your feet," said Donald
soberly as he handed her packages from the box. "My dad is
beginning to discourse on you with such signs of intelligence
that I am almost led to believe, from some of his wildest
outbursts, that he has had some personal experience in some way."
"And why not?" asked Linda lightly. "Haven't I often told you
that my father constantly went on fishing and hunting trips, that
he was a great collector of botanical specimens, that he
frequently took his friends with him? You might ask your father
if he does not recall me as having fried fish and made coffee and
rendered him camp service when I was a slip of a thing in the
dawn of my teens."
"Well, he didn't just mention it," said Donald, "but I can
.easily see how it might have been."
After they had finished one of Katy's inspired lunches, in which
a large part of the inspiration had been mental on Linda's part
and executive on Katy's, they climbed rock faces, skirted
wave-beaten promontories, and stood peering from overhanging
cliffs dipping down into the fathomless green sea, where the
water boiled up in turbulent fury. Linda pointed out the rocks
upon which she would sit, if she were a mermaid, to comb the
seaweed from her hair. She could hear the sea bells ringing in
those menacing depths, but Donald's ears were not so finely
tuned. At the top of one of the highest cliffs they climbed,
there grew a clump of slender pale green bushes, towering high
above their heads with exquisitely cut blue-green leaves, lance
shaped and slender. Donald looked at the fascinating growth
appraisingly.
"Linda," he said, "do you know that the slimness and the
sheerness and the audacious foothold and the beauty of that thing
remind me of you? It is covered all over with the delicate
frostbloom you taught me to see upon fruit. I find it everywhere
but you have never told me what it is."
Linda laughingly reached up and broke a spray of greenish-yellow
tubular flowers, curving out like clustered trumpets spilling
melody from their fluted throats.
"You will see it everywhere. You will find these flowers every
month of the year," she said, "and I am particularly gladsome
that this plant reminds you of me. I love the bluish-green
'bloom' of its sheer foliage. I love the music these flower
trumpets make to me. I love the way it has traveled, God knows
how, all the way from the Argentine and spread itself over our
country wherever it is allowed footing. I am glad that there is
soothing in these dried leaves for those who require it. I shall
be delighted to set my seal on you with it. There are two little
Spanish words that it suggests to the Mexican--Buena moza--but
you shall find out for yourself what they mean."
Encountering his father that night at his library door, Donald
Whiting said to him: "May I come in, Dad? I have something I
must look up before I sleep. Have you a Spanish lexicon, or no
doubt you have this in your head."
"Well, I've a halting vocabulary," said the Judge. "What's your
phrase?"
"Linda put this flower on me today," said Donald, "and she said
she was pleased because I said the tall, slender bush it grew on
reminded me of her. She gave me the Spanish name, but I don't
know the exact significance of the decoration I am wearing until
I learn the meaning of the phrase."
"Try me on it," said the Judge.
" 'Buena moza,"' quoted Donald.
The Judge threw back his head and laughed heartily.
"Son," he said, "you should know that from the Latin you're
learning. You should translate it instinctively. I couldn't
tell you exactly whether a Spaniard would translate 'Buena'
'fine' or 'good.' Knowing their high-falutin' rendition of almost
everything else I would take my chance on 'fine.' Son, your
phrase means 'a fine girl.' "
Donald looked down at the flower in his buttonhole, and then he
looked straight at his father.
"And only the Lord knows, Dad," he said soberly, "exactly how
fine Linda-girl is."
CHAPTER XXVI. A Mouse Nest
LINDA DEAREST:
I am delighted that you had such a wonderful birthday. I would
take a shot in air that anything you don't understand about it
you might with reasonable safety charge to Katherine O'Donovan.
I think it was great of her to have a suitable and a becoming
dress waiting for you and a congenial man like Peter Morrison to
dine with you. He appealed to me as being a rare character,
highly original, and, I should think, to those who know him well
he must be entertaining and lovable in the extreme. I never
shall be worried about you so long as I know that he is taking
care of you.
I should not be surprised if some day I meet Eileen somewhere,
because Dana and I are going about more than you would believe
possible. I heartily join with you in wishing her every good
that life can bring her. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I
can't help feeling, Linda, that she is taking a poor way to win
the best, and I gravely doubt whether she finds it in the
spending of unlimited quantities of the money of a coarse man who
stumbled upon his riches accidentally, as has many a man of
California and Colorado.
I intended, when I sat down to write, the very first thing I
said, to thank you for your wonderful invitation, seconded so
loyally and cordially by Katy, to make my home with you until the
time comes-- if it ever does come--when I shall have a home of my
own again. And just as simply and wholeheartedly as you made the
offer, I accept it. I am enclosing the address and the receipt
for my furniture in storage, and a few lines ordering it
delivered at your house and the bill sent to me. I only kept a
few heirlooms and things of Mother's and Father's that are very
precious to me. Whenever Eileen takes her things you can order
mine in and let me know, and I'll take a day or two off and run
down for a short visit.
Mentioning Eileen makes me think of John. I think of him more
frequently than I intend or wish that I did, but I feel my ninth
life is now permanently extinguished concerning him. I thought I
detected in your letter, Linda dear, a hint of fear that he might
come back to me and that I might welcome him. If you have any
such feeling in your heart, abandon it, child, because, while I
try not to talk about myself, I do want to say that I rejoice in
a family inheritance of legitimate pride. I couldn't give the
finest loyalty and comradeship I had to give to a man, have it
returned disdainfully, and then furbish up the pieces and present
it over again. If I can patch those same pieces and so polish
and refine them that I can make them, in the old phrase, "as good
as new," possibly in time-
But, Linda, one thing is certain as the hills of morning. Never
in my life will any man make any headway with me again with vague
suggestions and innuendoes and hints. If ever any man wants to
be anything in my life, he will speak plainly and say what he
wants and thinks and hopes and intends and feels in not more than
two-syllable English. I learned my lesson about the futility of
building your house of dreams on a foundation of sand. Next time
I erect a dream house, it is going to have a proper foundation of
solid granite. And that may seem a queer thing for me to say
when you know that I am getting the joy in my life, that I do not
hesitate to admit I am, from letters written by a man whose name
I don't know. It may be that I don't know the man, but I
certainly am very well acquainted with him, and in some way he
seems to me to be taking on more definite form. I should not be
surprised if I were to recognize him the first time I met him
face to face.
Linda looked through the skylight and cried out to the stars:
"Good heavens! Have I copied Peter too closely?"
She sat thinking a minute and then she decided she had not.
And in this connection you will want to know how I am progressing
in my friendship with the junior partner, and what kind of
motorist I am making. I am still driving twice a week, and
lately on Sundays in a larger car, taking Dana and a newspaper
friend of hers along. I think I have driven every hazard that
this part of California affords except the mountains; Mr. Snow is
still merciful about them.
Linda dear, I know what you're dying to know. You want to know
whether Mr. Snow is in the same depths of mourning as when our
acquaintance first began. This, my dear child, is very
reprehensible of you. Young girls with braids down their
backs--and by the way, Linda, you did not tell me what happened
"after the ball was over." Did you go to school the next morning
with braids down your back, or wearing your coronet? Because on
that depends what I have to say to you now; if you went with
braids, you're still my little girl chum, the cleanest, finest
kid I have ever known; but if you wore your coronet, then you're
a woman and my equal and my dearest friend, far dearer than Dana
even; and I tell you this, Linda, because I want you always to
understand that you come first.
I have tried and tried to visualize you, and can't satisfy my
mind as to whether the braids are up or down. Going on the
assumption that they are up, and that life may in the near future
begin to hold some interesting experiences for you, I will tell
you this, beloved child: I don't think Mr. Snow is mourning
quite so deeply as he was. I have not been asked, the last four
or five trips we have been on, to carry an armload of exquisite
flowers to the shrine of a departed love. I have been privileged
to take them home and arrange them in my room and Dana's. And I
haven't heard so much talk about loneliness, and I haven't seen
such tired, sad eyes. It seems to me that a familiar pair of
shoulders are squaring up to the world again, and a very kind
pair of eyes are brighter with interest. I don't know how you
feel about this; I don't know how I feel about it myself. I am
sure that Eugene Snow is a man who, in the years to come, would
line up beside your father and mine, and I like him immensely.
It is merely a case of not liking him less, but of liking my
unknown man more. I couldn't quite commit the sacrilege, Linda
dear, of sending you a sample of the letters I am receiving, but
they are too fanciful and charming for any words of mine to
describe adequately. I don't know who this man is, or what he
has to offer, or whether he intends to offer anything, but it is
a ridiculous fact, Linda, that I would rather sit with him in a
chimney corner of field boulders, on a pine floor, with a palm
roof and an Ocotillo candle, than to glow in the
parchment-shielded electric light of the halls of a rich man. In
a recent letter, Linda, there was a reference to a woman who wore
"a diadem of crystallized light." It was a beautiful thing and I
could not help taking it personally. It was his way of telling
me that he knew me, and knew my tragedy; and, as I said before, I
am beginning to feel that I have him rather definitely located;
and I can understand the fine strain in him that prompted his
anonymity, and his reasons for it. Of course I am not
sufficiently confident yet to say anything definite, but my heart
is beginning to say things that I sincerely hope my lips never
will be forced to deny.
Linda laid down the letter, folded her hands across it, and once
more looked at the stars.
"Good gracious!" she said. "I am tincturing those letters with
too much Peter. I'll have to tone down a bit. Next thing I know
she will be losing her chance with that wonderful Snow man for a
dream. In my efforts to comfort her I must have gone too far.
It is all right to write a gushy love letter and stuff it full of
Peter's whimsical nonsense, but, in the language of the poet, how
am I going to 'deliver the goods'? Of course that talk about
Louise Whiting was all well enough. Equally, of course, I
outlined and planted the brook and designed the bridge for
Marian, whether she knows it or Peter knows it, or not. If they
don't know it, it's about time they were finding it out. I think
it's my job to visit Peter more frequently and see if I can't
invent some way to make him see the light. I will give Katy a
hint in the morning. Tomorrow evening I'll go up and have supper
with him and see if he has another article in the stewpan. I
like this work with Peter. I like having him make me dream
dreams and see pictures. I like the punch and the virility he
puts into my drawings. It's all right reproducing monkey flowers
and lilies for pastime, but for serious business, for real life
work, I would rather do Peter's brainstorming, heart-thrilling
pictures than my merely pretty ones. On the subject of Peter, I
must remember in the morning to take those old books he gave me
to Donald. I believe that from one of them he is going to get
the very material he needs to down the Jap in philosophy. And
they are not text books which proves that Peter must have been
digging into the subject and hunted them up in some second-hand
store, or even sent away an order for them."
In the hall the next morning Linda stopped Donald and gave him
the books. In the early stages of their friendship she had
looked at him under half-closed lids and waited to see whether he
intended stopping to say a word with her when they passed each
other or came down the halls together. She knew that their
acquaintance would be noted and commented upon, and she knew how
ready the other girls would be to say that she was bold and
forward, so she was careful to let Donald make the advances,
until he had called to her so often, and had dug flowers and left
his friends waiting at her door while he delivered them, that she
felt free to address him as she chose. He had shown any
interested person in the high school that he was her friend, that
he was speaking to her exactly as he did to girls he had known
from childhood. He was very popular among the boys and girls of
his class and the whole school. His friendship, coming at the
time of Linda's rebellion on the subject of clothes, had
developed a tendency to bring her other friendships. Boys who
never had known she was in existence followed Donald's example in
stopping her to say a word now and then. Girls who had politely
ignored her now found things to say; and several invitations she
had not had leisure to accept had been sent to her for afternoon
and evening entertainments among the young people. Linda had
laid out for herself something of a task in deciding to be the
mental leader of her class. There were good brains in plenty
among the other pupils. It was only by work, concentration, and
purpose, only by having a mind keenly alert, by independent
investigation and introducing new points of view that she could
hold her prestige. Up to the receipt of her letter containing
the offer to publish her book she had been able rigorously to
exclude from her mind the personality and the undertakings of
Jane Meredith. She was Linda Strong in the high school and for
an hour or two at her studies. She was Jane Meredith over the
desert, through the canyons, beside the sea, in her Multiflores
kitchen or in Katherine O'Donovan's. But this book offer opened
a new train of thought, a new series of plans. She could see her
way-- thanks to her father she had the material in her mind and
the art in her finger tips-- to materialize what she felt would
be even more attractive in book form than anything her editor had
been able to visualize from her material. She knew herself, she
knew her territory so minutely. Frequently she smiled when she
read statements in her botanies as to where plants and vegetables
could be found. She knew the high home of the rare and precious
snow plant. She knew the northern limit of the strawberry
cactus. She knew where the white sea swallow nested. She knew
where the Monarch butterfly went on his winter migration. She
knew where the trap-door spider, with cunning past the cunning of
any other architect of Nature, built his small, round,
silken-lined tower and hinged his trap door so cleverly that only
he could open it from the outside. She had even sat immovable
and watched him erect his house, and she would have given much to
see him weave its silver lining.
Linda was fast coming to the place where she felt herself to be
one in an interested group of fellow workers. She no longer gave
a thought to what kind of shoes she wore. Other girls were
beginning to wear the same kind. The legislatures of half a
dozen states were passing laws regulating the height of heel
which might be worn within their boundaries. Manufacturers were
promising for the coming season that suitable shoes would be
built for street wear and mountain climbing, for the sands of the
sea and the sands of the desert, and the sheer face of canyons.
The extremely long, dirt-sweeping skirts were coming up; the
extremely short, immodest skirts were coming down. A sane and
sensible wave seemed to be sweeping the whole country. Under the
impetus of Donald Whiting's struggles to lead his classes and
those of other pupils to lead theirs a higher grade of
scholarship was beginning to be developed throughout the high
school. Pupils were thinking less of what they wore and how much
amusement they could crowd in, and more about making grades that
would pass them with credit from year to year. The horrors of
the war and the disorders following it had begun to impress upon
the young brains growing into maturity the idea that soon it
would be their task to take over the problems that were now
vexing the world's greatest statesmen and its wisest and most
courageous women. A tendency was manifesting itself among young
people to equip themselves to take a worthy part in the struggles
yet to come. Classmates who had looked with toleration upon
Linda's common-sense shoes and plain dresses because she was her
father's daughter, now looked upon her with respect and
appreciation because she started so many interesting subjects for
discussion, because she was so rapidly developing into a creature
well worth looking at. Always she would be unusual because of
her extreme height, her narrow eyes, her vivid coloring. But a
greater maturity, a fuller figure, had come to be a part of the
vision with which one looked at Linda. In these days no one saw
her as she was. Even her schoolmates had fallen into the habit
of seeing her as she would be in the years to come.
Thus far she had been able to keep her identities apart without
any difficulty; but the book proposition was so unexpected, it
was such a big thing to result from her modest beginning, that
Linda realized that she must proceed very carefully, she must
concentrate with all her might, else her school work would begin
to suffer in favor of the book. Recently so many things had
arisen to distract her attention. Many days she had not been
able to keep Eileen's face off her geometry papers; and again she
saw Gilman's, anxious and pain-filled. Sometimes she found
herself lifting her eyes from tasks upon which she was
concentrating with all her might, and with no previous thought
whatever she was searching for Donald Whiting, and when she saw
him, coming into muscular and healthful manhood, she returned to
her work with more strength, deeper vision, a quiet, assured
feeling around her heart. Sometimes, over the edge of Literature
and Ancient History, Peter Morrison looked down at her with
gravely questioning eyes and dancing imps twisting his mouth
muscles, and Linda paused a second to figure upon what had become
an old problem with her. Why did her wild-flower garden make
Peter Morrison think of a graveyard? What was buried there
besides the feet of her rare flowers? She had not as yet found
the answer.
This day her thoughts were on Peter frequently because she
intended to see him that night. She was going to share with him
a supper of baked ham and beans and bread and butter and pickled
onions and little nut cakes, still warm from Katy's oven. She
was going to take Katy with her in order that she might see Peter
Morrison's location and the house for his dream lady, growing at
the foot of the mountain like a gay orchid homing on a forest
tree. To Linda it was almost a miracle, the rapidity with which
a house could be erected in California. In a few weeks' time she
had seen a big cellar scooped out of the plateau, had seen it
lined and rising to foundation height above the surface in solid
concrete, faced outside with cracked boulders. She had seen a
framework erected, a rooftree set, and joists and rafters and
beams swinging into place. Fretworks of lead and iron pipe were
running everywhere, and wires for electricity. Soon shingles and
flooring would be going into place, and Peter said that when he
had finished acrobatic performances on beams and girders and
really stepped out on solid floors where he might tread without
fear of breaking any of his legs, he would perform a Peacock
Dance all by himself.
"Peter, you sound like a centipede," said Linda.
"Dear child," said Peter, "when I enter my front door and get to
the back on two-inch footing, I positively feel that I have
numerous legs, and I ache almost as badly in the fear that I
shall break the two I have, as I should if they were really
broken."
And then he added a few words on a subject of which he had not
before spoken to Linda.
"It was like that in France. When we really got into the heat of
things and the work was actually being done, we were not afraid:
we were too busy; we were 'supermen.' The time when we were all
legs and arms and head, and all of them were being blown away
wholesale was when the shells whined over while we had a rest
hour and were trying to sleep, or in the cold, dim dawn when we
stumbled out stiff, hungry, and sleepy. It's not the REAL THING
when it's really occurring that gets one. It's the devils of
imagination tormenting the soul. There is only one thing in this
world can happen to me that is really going to be as bad as the
things I dream."
Linda looked down Lilac Valley, her eyes absently focusing on
Katy busily setting supper on a store box in front of the garage.
Then she looked at Peter.
"Mind telling?" she inquired lightly.
Peter looked at her speculatively.
"And would a man be telling his heart's best secret to a kid like
you?" he asked.
"Now, I call that downright mean," said Linda. "Haven't you
noticed that my braids are up? Don't you see a maturity and a
dignity and a general matronliness apparent all over me today?"
"Matronliness" was too much for Peter. You could have heard his
laugh far down the blue valley.
"That's good!" he cried.
"It is," agreed Linda. "It means that my braids are up to stay,
so hereafter I'm a real woman."
She lingered over the word an instant, glancing whimsically at
Peter, a trace of a smile on her lips, then she made her way down
a slant declivity and presently returned with an entire flower
plant, new to Peter and of unusual beauty.
"And because I am a woman I shall set my seal upon you," she
said.
In the buttonhole of his light linen coat she placed a flower of
satin face of purest gold, the five petals rounded, but sharply
tipped, a heavy mass of silk stamens, pollen dusted in the heart.
She pushed back the left side of his coat and taking one of the
rough, hairy leaves of the plant she located it over Peter's
heart, her slim, deft fingers patting down the leaf and
flattening it out until it lay pasted smooth and tight. As she
worked, she smiled at him challengingly. Peter knew he was
experiencing a ceremony of some kind, the significance of which
he must learn. It was the first time Linda had voluntarily
touched him. He breathed lightly and held steady, lest he
startle her.
"Lovely enough," he said, "to have come from the hills of the
stars. Don't make me wait, Linda; help me to the
interpretation."
"Buena Mujer," suggested Linda.
"Good woman," translated Peter.
Linda nodded, running a finger down the leaf over his heart.
"Because she sticks close to you," she explained. Then startled
by the look in Peter's eyes, she cried in swift change: "Now we
are all going to work for a minute. Katy's spreading the lunch.
You take this pail and go to the spring for water and I shall
tidy your quarters for you."
With the eye of experience Linda glanced over the garage deciding
that she must ask for clean sheets for the cot and that the
Salvation Army would like the heap of papers. Studying the
writing table she heard a faint sound that untrained ears would
have missed.
"Ah, ha, Ma wood mouse," said Linda, "nibbling Peter's dr, goods
are you?"
Her cry a minute later answered the question. She came from the
garage upon Katherine O'Donovan rushing to meet her, holding a
man's coat at the length of her far-reaching arm.
"I wish you'd look at that pocket. I don't know how long this
coat has been hanging there, but there is a nest of field mice in
it," she said.
Katy promptly retreated to the improvised dining table, seated
herself upon an end of it, and raised both feet straight into the
air.
"Small help I'll be getting from you," said Linda laughingly.
She went to the edge of the declivity that cut back to the garage
and with a quick movement reversed the coat catching it by the
skirts and shaking it vigorously.
CHAPTER XXVII. The Straight and Narrow
This served exactly the purpose Linda had intended. It dislodged
the mouse nest and dropped it three feet below her level, but it
did something else upon which Linda had no time to count. It
emptied every pocket in the coat and sent the contents scattering
down the rough declivity.
"Oh my gracious!" gasped Linda. "Look what I have done! Katy,
come help me quickly; I have to gather up this stuff; but it's no
use; I'll have to take it to Peter and tell him. I couldn't put
these things back in the pockets where his hand will reach for
them, because I don't know which came from inside and which came
from out."
Linda sprang down and began hastily gathering up everything she
could see that had fallen from the coat pockets. She had almost
finished when her fingers chanced upon a very soiled, befigured
piece of paper whose impressed folds showed that it had been
carried for some time in an inner pocket. As her fingers touched
this paper her eyes narrowed, her breath came in a gasp. She
looked at it a second, irresolute, then she glanced over the top
of the declivity in the direction Peter had taken. He was
standing in front of the building, discussing some matter with
the contractor. He had not yet gone to the spring. Shielded by
the embankment with shaking fingers Linda opened the paper barely
enough to see that it was Marian's lost sheet of plans; but it
was not as Marian had lost it. It was scored deeply here and
there with heavy lines suggestive of alterations, and the margin
was fairly covered with fine figuring. Linda did not know Peter
Morrison's writing or figures. His articles had been typewritten
and she had never seen his handwriting. She sat down suddenly on
account of weakened knees, and gazed unseeingly down the length
of Lilac Valley, her heart sick, her brain tormented. Suddenly
she turned and studied the house.
"Before the Lord!" she gasped. "I THOUGHT there was something
mighty familiar even about the skeleton of you! Oh, Peter, Peter,
where did you get this, and how could you do it?"
For a while a mist blurred her eyes. She reached for the coat
and started to replace the things she had gathered up, then she
shut her lips tight.
"Best time to pull a tooth," she said tersely to a terra cotta
red manzanita bush, "is when it aches."
When Peter returned from the spring he was faced by a trembling
girl, colorless and trying hard to keep her voice steady. She
held out the coat to him with one hand, the package of papers
with the other, the folded drawing conspicuous on the top. With
these she gestured toward the declivity.
"Mouse nest in your pocket, Peter," she said thickly. "Reversed
the coat to shake it out, and spilled your stuff."
Then she waited for Peter to be confounded. But Peter was not in
the faintest degree troubled about either the coat or the papers.
What did trouble him was the face and the blazing eyes of the
girl concerning whom he would not admit, even to himself, his
exact state of feeling.
"The mouse did not get on you, Linda?" he asked anxiously.
Linda shook her head. Suddenly she lost her self-control.
"Oh, Peter," she wailed, "how could you do it?"
Peter's lean frame tensed suddenly.
"I don't understand, Linda," he said quietly. "Exactly what have
I done?"
Linda thrust the coat and the papers toward him accusingly and
stood there wordless but with visible pain in her dark eyes.
peter smiled at her reassuringly.
"That's not my coat, you know. If there is anything distressing
about it, don't lay it to me."
"Oh, Peter!" cried Linda, "tell the truth about it. Don't try
any evasions. I am so sick of them."
A rather queer light sprang into Peter's eyes. He leaned forward
suddenly and caught the coat from Linda's fingers.
"Well, if you need an alibi concerning this coat," he said, "I
think I can furnish it speedily."
As he talked he whirled the garment around and shot his long arms
into the sleeves. Shaking it into place on his shoulders, he
slowly turned in front of Linda and the surprised Katy. The
sleeves came halfway to his wrists and the shoulders slid down
over his upper arms. He made such a quaint and ridiculous figure
that Katy burst out laughing. She was very well trained, but she
knew Linda was deeply distressed.
"Wake up, lambie!" she cried sharply. "That coat ain't belonging
to Mr. Pater Morrison. That gairment is the property of that
bug-catchin' architect of his."
Peter shook off the coat and handed it back to Linda.
"Am I acquitted?" he asked lightly; but his surprised eyes were
searching her from braid to toe.
Linda turned from him swiftly. She thrust the packet into a side
pocket and started to the garage with the coat. As she passed
inside she slipped down her hand, slid the sheet of plans from
the other papers, and slipped it into the front of her blouse.
She hung the coat back where she had found it, then suddenly sat
down on the side of Peter Morrison's couch, white and shaken.
Peter thought he heard a peculiar gasp and when he strayed past
the door, casually glancing inward, he saw what he saw, and it
brought him to his knees beside Linda with all speed.
"Linda-girl," he implored, "what in this world has happened?"
Linda struggled to control her voice; but at last she buried her
face in her hands and frankly emitted a sound that she herself
would have described as "howling." Peter knelt back in wonder.
"Of all the things I ever thought about you, Linda," he said,
"the one thing I never did think was that you were hysterical."
If there was one word in Linda's vocabulary more opprobrious than
"nerves," which could be applied to a woman, it was "hysterics."
The great specialist had admitted nerves; hysterics had no
standing with him. Linda herself had no more use for a
hysterical woman than she had for a Gila monster. She
straightened suddenly, and in removing her hands from her face
she laid one on each of Peter's shoulders.
"Oh, Peter," she wailed, "I am not a hysterical idiot, but I
couldn't have stood it if that coat had been yours. Peter, I
just couldn't have borne it!"
Peter held himself rigidly in the fear that he might disturb the
hands that were gripping him.
"I see I have the job of educating these damned field mice as to
where they may build with impunity," he said soberly.
But Linda was not to be diverted. She looked straight and deep
into his eyes.
"Peter," she said affirmatively, "you don't know a thing about
that coat, do you?"
"I do not," said Peter promptly.
"You never saw what was in its pockets, did you?"
"Not to my knowledge," answered Peter. "What was in the pockets,
Linda?"
Linda thought swiftly. Peter adored his dream house. If she
told him that the plans for it had been stolen by his architect,
the house would be ruined for Peter. Anyone could see from the
candor of his gaze and the lines that God and experience had
graven on his face that Peter was without guile. Suddenly Linda
shot her hands past Peter's shoulders and brought them together
on the back of his neck. She drew his face against hers and
cried: "Oh Peter, I would have been killed if that coat had been
yours. I tell you I couldn't have endured it, Peter. I am just
tickled to death!"
One instant she hugged him tight. If her lips did not brush his
cheek, Peter deluded himself. Then she sprang up and ran from
the garage. Later he took the coat from its nail, the papers
from its pockets, and carefully looked them over. There was
nothing among them that would give him the slightest clue to
Linda's conduct. He looked again, penetratingly, searchingly,
for he must learn from them a reason; and no reason was apparent.
With the coat in one hand and the papers in the other he stepped
outside.
"Linda," he said, "won't you show me? Won't you tell me? What
is there about this to upset you?"
Linda closed her lips and shook her head. Once more Peter sought
in her face, in her attitude the information he craved.
"Needn't tell me," he said, "that a girl who will face the desert
and the mountains and the canyons and the sea is upset by a
mouse."
"Well, you should have seen Katy sitting in the midst of our
supper with her feet rigidly extended before her!" cried the
girl, struggling to regain her composure. "Put back that coat
and come to your supper. It's time for you to be fed now. The
last workman has gone and we'll barely have time to finish nicely
and show Katy your dream house before it's time to go."
Peter came and sat in the place Linda indicated. His mind was
whirling. There was something he did not understand, but in her
own time, in her own way, a girl of Linda's poise and
self-possession would tell him what had occurred that could be
responsible for the very peculiar things she had done. In some
way she had experienced a shock too great for her usual
self-possession. The hands with which she fished pickled onions
from the bottle were still unsteady, and the corroboration Peter
needed for his thoughts could be found in the dazed way in which
Katy watched Linda as she hovered over her in serving her. But
that was not the time. By and by the time would come. The thing
to do was to trust Linda and await its coming. So Peter called
on all the reserve wit and wisdom he had at command. He jested,
told stories, and to Linda's satisfaction and Katy's delight, he
ate his supper like a hungry man, frankly enjoying it, and when
the meal was finished Peter took Katy over the house, explaining
to her as much detail as was possible at that stage of its
construction, while Linda followed with mute lips and rebellion
surging in her heart. When leaving time came, while Katy packed
the Bear Cat, Linda wandered across toward the spring, and Peter,
feeling that possibly she might wish to speak with him, followed
her. When he overtook her she looked at him straightly, her eyes
showing the hurt her heart felt.
"Peter," she said, "that first night you had dinner with us, was
Henry Anderson out of your presence one minute from the time you
came into the house until you left it?"
Peter stopped and studied the ground at his feet intently.
Finally he said conclusively: "I would go on oath, Linda, that
he was not. We were all together in the living room, all
together in the dining room. We left together at night and John
was with us."
"I see," said Linda. "Well, then, when you came back the next
morning after Eileen, before you started on your trip, to hunt a
location, was he with you all the time?"
Again Peter took his time to answer.
"We came to your house with Gilman," he said. "John started to
the front door to tell Miss Eileen that we were ready. I
followed him. Anderson said he would look at the scenery. He
must have made a circuit of the house, because when we came out
ready to start, a very few minutes later, he was coming down the
other side of the house."
"Ah," said Linda comprehendingly.
"Linda," said Peter quietly, "it is very obvious that something
has worried you extremely. Am I in any way connected with it?"
Linda shook her head.
"Is there anything I can do?"
The negative was repeated. Then she looked at him.
"No, Peter," she said quietly, "I confess I have had a shock, but
it is in no way connected with you and there is nothing you can
do about it but forget my foolishness. But I am glad--Peter, you
will never know how glad I am--that you haven't anything to do
with it."
Then in the friendliest fashion imaginable she reached him her
hand and led the way back to the Bear Cat, their tightly gripped
hands swinging between them. As Peter closed the door he looked
down on Linda.
"Young woman," he said, "since this country has as yet no nerve
specialist to take the place of your distinguished father, if you
have any waves to wave to me tonight, kindly do it before you
start or after you reach the highway. If you take your hands off
that steering wheel as you round the boulders and strike that
declivity as I have seen you do heretofore, I won't guarantee
that I shall not require a specialist myself."
Linda started to laugh, then she saw Peter's eyes and something
in them stopped her suddenly.
"I did not realize that I was taking any risk," she said. "I
won't do it again. I will say good-bye to you right here and now
so I needn't look back."
So she shook hands with Peter and drove away. Peter slowly
followed down the rough driveway, worn hard by the wheels of
delivery trucks, and stood upon the highest point of the rocky
turn, looking after the small gray car as it slid down the steep
declivity. And he wondered if there could have been telepathy in
the longing with which he watched it go, for at the level roadway
that followed between the cultivated land out to the highway
Linda stopped the car, stood up in it, and turning, looked back
straight to the spot upon which Peter stood. She waved both
hands to him, and then gracefully and beautifully, with
outstretched, fluttering fingers she made him the sign of birds
flying home. And with the whimsy in his soul uppermost, Peter
reflected, as he turned back for a microscopic examination of
Henry Anderson's coat and the contents of its pockets, that there
was one bird above all others which made him think of Linda; but
he could not at the moment feather Katherine O'Donovan. And then
he further reflected as he climbed the hill that if it had to be
done the best he could do would be a bantam hen contemplating
domesticity.
Linda looked the garage over very carefully when she put away the
Bear Cat. When she closed the garage doors she was particular
about the locks. As she came through the kitchen she said to
Katy, busy with the lunch box:
"Belovedest, have there been any strange Japs poking around here
lately?"
She nearly collapsed when Katy answered promptly:
"A dale too many of the square-headed haythens. I am pestered to
death with them. They used to come jist to water the lawn but
now they want to crane the rugs; they want to do the wash. They
are willing to crane house. They want to get into the garage;
they insist on washing the car. If they can't wash it they jist
want to see if it nades washin'."
Linda stood amazed.
"And how long has this been going on, Katy?" she finally asked.
"Well, I have had two good months of it," said Katy; "that is, it
started two months ago. The past month has been workin' up and
the last ten days it seemed to me they was a Jap on the back
steps oftener than they was a stray cat, and I ain't no truck
with ayther of them. They give me jist about the same falin'.
Between the two I would trust the cat a dale further with my bird
than I would the Jap."
"Have you ever unlocked the garage for them, Katy?" asked Linda.
"No," said Katy. "I only go there when I nade something about me
work."
"Well, Katy," said Linda, "let me tell you this: the next time
you go there for anything take a good look for Japs before you
open the door. Get what you want and get out as quickly as
possible and be sure, Katy, desperately sure, that you lock the
door securely when you leave."
Katy set her hands on her hips, flared her elbows, and lifted her
chin.
"What's any of them little haythen been coin' to scare ye,
missy?" she demanded belligerently. "Don't you think I'm afraid
of them! Comes any of them around me and I'll take my mopstick
over the heads of them."
"And you'll break a perfectly good mopstick and not hurt the Jap
when you do it," said Linda. "There's an undercurrent of
something deep and subtle going on in this country right now,
Katy. When Japan sends college professors to work in our
kitchens and relatives of her greatest statesmen to serve our
tables, you can depend on it she is not doing it for the money
that is paid them. If California does not wake up very shortly
and very thoroughly she is going to pay an awful price for the
luxury she is experiencing while she pampers herself with the
service of the Japanese, just as the South has pampered herself
for generations with the service of the Negroes. When the
Negroes learn what there is to know, then the day of retribution
will be at hand. And this is not croaking, Katy. It is the
truest gospel that was ever preached. Keep your eyes wide open
for Japs. Keep your doors locked, and if you see one prowling
around the garage and don't know what he is after, go to the
telephone and call the police."
Linda climbed the stairs to her workroom, plumped down at the
table, set her chin in her palms, and lost herself in thought.
For half an hour she sat immovable, staring at her caricature of
Eileen through narrowed lids. Then she opened the typewriter,
inserted a sheet and wrote:
MY DEAR Mr. SNOW:
I am writing as the most intimate woman friend of Marian Thorne.
As such, I have spent much thought trying to figure out exactly
the reason for the decision in your recent architectural
competition; why a man should think of such a number of very
personal, intimate touches that, from familiarity with them, I
know that Miss Thorne had incorporated in her plans, and why his
winning house should be her winning house, merely reversed.
Today I have found the answer, which I am forwarding to you,
knowing that you will understand exactly what should be done.
Enclosed you will find one of the first rough s};etches Marian
made of her plans. In some mysterious manner it was lost on a
night when your prize-winning architect had dinner at our house
where Miss Thorne was also a guest. Before retiring she showed
to me and explained the plans with which she hoped to win your
competition. In the morning I packed her suitcase and handed it
to the porter of her train. When she arrived at San Francisco
she found that the enclosed sheet was missing.
This afternoon tidying a garage in which Mr. Peter Morrison, the
author, is living while Henry Anderson completes a residence he
is building for him near my home, I reversed a coat belonging to
Henry Anderson to dislodge from its pocket the nest of a field
mouse. In so doing I emptied all the pockets, and in gathering
up their contents I found this lost sheet from Marian's plans.
I think nothing more need be said on my part save that I
understood the winning plan was to become the property of
Nicholson and Snow. Without waiting to see whether these plans
would win or not, Henry Anderson has them three fourths of the
way materialized in Mr. Morrison's residence in Lilac Valley
which is a northwestern suburb of Los Angeles.
You probably have heard Marian speak of me, and from her you may
obtain any information you might care to have concerning my
responsibility.
I am mailing the sketch to you rather than to Marian because I
feel that you are the party most deeply interested in a business
way, and I hope, too, that you will be interested in protecting
my very dear friend from the disagreeable parts of this very
disagreeable situation.
Very truly yours,
LINDA STRONG.
CHAPTER XXVIII. Putting It Up to Peter
When Peter Morrison finally gave up looking in the pockets of
Henry Anderson's coat for enlightenment concerning Linda's
conduct, it was with his mind settled on one point. There was
nothing in the coat now that could possibly have startled the
girl or annoyed her. Whatever had been there that caused her
extremely peculiar conduct she had carried away with her. Peter
had settled convictions concerning Linda. From the first instant
he had looked into her clear young eyes as she stood in
Multiflores Canyon triumphantly holding aloft the Cotyledon in
one hand and with the other struggling to induce the skirt of her
blouse to resume its proper location beneath the band of her
trousers, he had felt that her heart and her mind were as clear
and cool and businesslike as the energetic mountain stream
hurrying past her. Above all others, "straight" was the one
adjective he probably would have applied to her. Whatever she
had taken from Henry's pockets was something that concerned her.
If she took anything, she had a right to take it; of that Peter
was unalterably certain. He remembered that a few days before
she practically had admitted to him that Anderson had annoyed
her, and a slow anger began to surge up in Peter's carefully
regulated heart. His thoughts were extremely busy, but the thing
he thought most frequently and most forcefully was that he would
thoroughly enjoy taking Henry Anderson by the scruff of the neck,
leading him to the sheerest part of his own particular share of
the mountain, and exhaustively booting him down it.
"It takes these youngsters to rush in and raise the devil where
there's no necessity for anything to happen if just a modicum of
common sense had been used," growled Peter.
He mulled over the problem for several days, and then he decided
he should see Linda, and with his first look into her
straight-forward eyes, from the tones of her voice and the
carriage of her head he would know whether the annoyance
persisted. About the customary time for her to return from
school Peter started on foot down the short cut between his home
and the Strong residence. He was following a footpath rounding
the base of the mountain, crossing and recrossing the
enthusiastic mountain stream as it speeded toward the valley,
when a flash of color on the farther side of the brook attracted
him. He stopped, then hastily sprang across the water, climbed a
few yards, and, after skirting a heavy clump of bushes, looked at
Linda sitting beside them--a most astonishing Linda, appearing
small and humble, very much tucked away, unrestrained tears
rolling down her cheeks, a wet handkerchief wadded in one hand, a
packet of letters in her lap. A long instant they studied each
other.
"Am I intruding?" inquired Peter at last.
Linda shook her head vigorously and gulped down a sob.
"No, Peter," she sobbed, "I had come this far on my way to you
when my courage gave out."
Peter rearranged the immediate landscape and seated himself
beside Linda.
"Now stop distressing yourself," he said authoritatively. "You
youngsters do take life so seriously. The only thing that could
have happened to you worth your shedding a tear over can't
possibly have happened; so stop this waste of good material.
Tears are very precious things, Linda. They ought to be the most
unusual things in life. Now tell me something. Were you coming
to me about that matter that worried you the other evening?"
Linda shook her head.
"No," she said, "I have turned that matter over where it belongs.
I have nothing further to do with it. I'll confess to you I took
a paper from among those that fell from Henry Anderson's pocket.
It was not his. He had no right to have it. He couldn't
possibly have come by it honorably or without knowing what it
was. I took the liberty to put it where it belongs, or at least
where it seemed to me that it belongs. That is all over."
"Then something else has happened?" asked Peter. "Something
connected with the package of letters in your lap?"
Linda nodded vigorously.
"Peter, I have done something perfectly awful," she confessed.
"I never in this world meant to do it. I wouldn't have done it
for anything. I have got myself into the dreadfullest mess, and
I don't know how to get out. When I couldn't stand it another
minute I started right to you, Peter, just like I'd have started
to my father if I'd had him to go to."
"I see," said Peter, deeply interested in the toe of his shoe.
"You depended on my age and worldly experience and my unconcealed
devotion to your interests, which is exactly what you should do,
my dear. Now tell me. Dry your eyes and tell me, and whatever
it is I'll fix it all right and happily for you. I'll swear to
do it if you want me to."
Then Linda raised her eyes to his face.
"Oh, Peter, you dear!" she cried. "Peter, I'll just kneel and
kiss your hands if you can fix this for me."
Peter set his jaws and continued his meditations on shoe leather.
"Make it snappy!" he said tersely. "The sooner your troubles are
out of your system the better you'll feel. Whose letters are
those, and why are you crying over them?"
"Oh, Peter," quavered Linda, "you know how I love Marian. You
have seen her and I have told you over and over."
"Yes," said Peter soothingly, "I know."
"I have told you how, after years of devotion to Marian, John
Gilman let Eileen make a perfect rag of him and tie him into any
kind of knot she chose. Peter, when Marian left here she had
lost everything on earth but a little dab of money. She had lost
a father who was fine enough to be my father's best friend. She
had lost a mother who was fine enough to rear Marian to what she
is. She had lost them in a horrible way that left her room for a
million fancies and regrets: 'if I had done this,' or 'if I had
done that,' or 'if I had taken another road.' And when she went
away she knew definitely she had lost the first and only love of
her heart; and I knew, because she was so sensitive and so fine,
I knew, better than anybody living, how she COULD be hurt; and I
thought if I could fix some scheme that would entertain her and
take her mind off herself and make her feel appreciated only for
a little while--I knew in all reason, Peter, when she got out in
the world where men would see her and see how beautiful and fine
she is, there would be somebody who would want her quickly. All
the time I have thought that when she came back, YOU would want
her. Peter, I fibbed when I said I was setting your brook for
Louise Whiting. I was not. I don't know Louise Whiting. She is
nothing to me. I was setting it for you and Marian. It was a
WHITE head I saw among the iris marching down your creek bank,
not a gold one, Peter."
Peter licked his dry lips and found it impossible to look at
Linda.
"Straight ahead with it," he said gravely. "What did you do?"
"Oh, I have done the awfullest thing," wailed Linda, "the most
unforgivable thing!"
She reached across and laid hold of the hand next her, and
realizing that she needed it for strength and support, Peter gave
it into her keeping.
"Yes?" he questioned. "Get on with it, Linda. What was it you
did?"
"I had a typewriter: I could. I began writing her letters, the
kind of letters that I thought would interest her and make her
feel loved and appreciated."
"You didn't sign my name to them, did you, Linda?" asked Peter in
a dry, breathless voice.
"No, Peter," said Linda, "I did not do that, I did worse. Oh, I
did a whole lot worse!"
"I don't understand," said Peter hoarsely.
"I wanted to make them fine. I wanted to make them brilliant.
I wanted to make them interesting. And of course I could not do
it by myself. I am nothing but a copycat. I just quoted a lot
of things I had heard you say; and I did worse than that, Peter.
I watched the little whimsy lines around your mouth and I tried
to interpret the perfectly lovely things they would make you say
to a woman if you loved her and were building a dream house for
her. And oh, Peter, it's too ghastly; I don't believe I can tell
you."
"This is pretty serious business, Linda," said Peter gravely.
"Having gone this far you are in honor bound to finish. It would
not be fair to leave me with half a truth. What is the result of
this impersonation?"
"Oh, Peter," sobbed Linda, breaking down again, "you're going to
hate me; I know you're going to hate me and Marian's going to
hate me; and I didn't mean a thing but the kindest thing in all
the world."
"Don't talk like that, Linda," said Peter. "If your friend is
all you say she is, she is bound to understand. And as for me, I
am not very likely to misjudge you. But be quick about it. What
did you do, Linda?"
"Why, I just wrote these letters that I am telling you about,"
said Linda, "and I said the things that I thought would comfort
her and entertain her and help with her work; and these are the
answers that she wrote me, and I don't think I realized till last
night that she was truly attributing them to any one man, truly
believing in them. Oh, Peter, I wasn't asleep a minute all last
night, and for the first time I failed in my lessons today."
"And what is the culmination, Linda?" urged Peter.
"She liked the letters, Peter. They meant all I intended them to
and they must have meant something I never could have imagined.
And in San Francisco one of the firm where she studies --a very
fine man she says he is, Peter; I can see that in every way he
would be quite right for her; and I had a letter from her last
night, and, Peter, he had asked her to marry him, to have a
lifelong chance at work she's crazy about. He had offered her a
beautiful home with everything that great wealth and culture and
good taste could afford. He had offered her the mothering of his
little daughter; and she refused him, Peter, refused him because
she is in love, with all the love there is left in her
disappointed, hurt heart, with the personality that these letters
represent to her; and that personality is yours, Peter. I stole
it from you. I copied it into those letters. I'm not straight.
I'm not fair. I wasn't honest with her. I wasn't honest with
you. I'll just have to take off front the top of the highest
mountain or sink in the deepest place in the sea, Peter. I
thought I was straight. I thought I was honorable I have made
Donald believe that I was. If I have to tell him the truth about
this he won't want to wear my flower any more. I shall know all
the things that Marian has suffered, and a thousand times worse,
because she was not to blame; she had nothing with which to
reproach herself."
Peter put an arm across Linda's shoulders and drew her up to him.
For a long, bitter moment he thought deeply, and then he said
hoarsely: "Now calm down, Linda. You're making an extremely
high mountain out of an extremely shallow gopher hole. You
haven't done anything irreparable. I see the whole situation.
You are sure your friend has finally refused this offer she has
had on account of these letters you have written?"
Suddenly Linda relaxed. She leaned her warm young body against
Peter. She laid her tired head on his shoulder. She slipped the
top letter of the packet in her lap from under its band, opened
it, and held it before him. Peter read it very deliberately,
then he nodded in acquiescence.
"It's all too evident," he said quietly, "that you have taught
her that there is a man in this world more to her liking than
John Gilman ever has been. When it came to materializing the
man, Linda, what was your idea? Were you proposing to deliver
me?"
"I thought it would be suitable and you would be perfectly
happy," sobbed Linda, "and that way I could have both of you."
"And Donald also?" asked Peter lightly.
"Donald of course," assented Linda.
And then she lifted her tear-spilling, wonderful eyes, wide open,
to Peter's, and demanded: "But, oh Peter, I am so miserable I am
almost dead. I have said you were a rock, and you are a rock.
peter, can you get me out of this?"
"Sure," said Peter grimly. "Merely a case of living up to your
blue china, even if it happens to be in the form of hieroglyphics
instead of baked pottery. Give me the letters, Linda. Give me a
few days to study them. Exchange typewriters with me so I can
have the same machine. Give me some of the paper on which you
have been writing and the address you have been using, and I'll
guarantee to get you out of this in some way that will leave you
Donald, and your friendship with Marian quite as good as new."
At that juncture Peter might have been kissed, but his neck was
very stiff and his head was very high and his eyes were on a
far-distant hilltop from which at that minute he could not seem
to gather any particular help.
"Would it be your idea," he said, "that by reading these letters
I could gain sufficient knowledge of what has passed to go on
with this?"
"Of course you could," said Linda.
Peter reached in his side pocket and pulled out a clean
handkerchief. He shook it from its folds and dried her eyes.
Then he took her by her shoulders and set her up straight.
"Now stop this nerve strain and this foolishness," he said
tersely. "You have done a very wonderful thing for me. It is
barely possible that Marian Thorne is not my dream woman, but we
can't always have our dreams in this world, and if I could not
have mine, truly and candidly, Linda, so far as I have lived my
life, I would rather have Marian Thorne than any other woman I
have ever met."
Linda clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, goody goody, Peter!" she cried. "How joyous! Can it be
possible that my bungling is coming out right for Marian and
right for you?"
"And right for you, Linda?" inquired Peter lightly.
"Sure, right for me," said Linda eagerly. "Of course it's right
for me when it's right for you and Marian. And since it's not my
secret alone I don't think it would be quite honorable to tell
Donald about it. What hurts Marian's heart or heals it is none
of his business. He doesn't even know her."
"All right then, Linda," said Peter, rising, "give me the letters
and bring me the machine and the paper. Give me the joyous
details and tell me when I am expected to send in my first letter
in propria persona?',
"Oh, Peter," cried Linda, beaming on him, "oh, Peter, you are a
rock! I do put my trust in you."
"Then God help me," said Peter, "for whatever happens, your trust
in me shall not be betrayed, Linda."
CHAPTER XXIX. Katy Unburdens Her Mind
Possibly because she wished to eliminate herself from the offices
of Nicholson and Snow for a few days, possibly because her finely
attuned nature felt the call, Marian Thorne boarded a train that
carried her to Los Angeles. She stepped from it at ten o'clock
in the morning, and by the streetcar route made her way to Lilac
Valley. When she arrived she realized that she could not see
Linda before, possibly, three in the afternoon. She entered a
restaurant, had a small lunch box packed, and leaving her
dressing case, she set off down the valley toward the mountains.
She had need of their strength, their quiet and their healing.
To the one particular spot where she had found comfort in Lilac
Valley her feet led her. By paths of her own, much overgrown for
want of recent usage, she passed through the cultivated fields,
left the roadway, and began to climb. When she reached the
stream flowing down the rugged hillside, she stopped to rest for
a while, and her mind was in a tumult. In one minute she was
seeing the bitterly disappointed face of a lonely, sensitive man
whose first wound had been reopened by the making of another
possibly quite as deep; and at the next her heart was throbbing
because Linda had succeeded in transferring the living Peter to
paper.
The time had come when Marian felt that she would know the
personality embodied in the letters she had been receiving; and
in the past few days her mind had been fixing tenaciously upon
Peter
Morrison. And the feeling concerning which she had written Linda
had taken possession of her. Wealth did not matter; position did
not matter. Losing the love of a good man did not matter But the
mind and the heart and the personality behind the letters she had
been receiving did matter. She thought long and seriously When
at last she arose she had arrived at the conclusion that she had
done the right thing, no matter whether the wonderful letters she
had received went on and offered her love or not, no matter about
anything. She must merely live and do the best she could, until
the writer of those letters chose to disclose himself and say
what purpose he had in mind when he wrote them.
So Marian followed her own path beside the creek until she neared
its head, which was a big, gushing icy spring at the foot of the
mountain keeping watch over the small plateau that in her heart
she had thought of as hers for years. As she neared the location
strange sounds began to reach her, voices of men, clanging of
hammers, the rip of saws. A look of deep consternation
overspread her face. She listened an instant and then began to
run. When she broke through the rank foliage flourishing from
the waters of the spring and looked out on the plateau what she
saw was Peter Morrison's house in the process of being floored
and shingled. For a minute Marian was physically ill. Her heart
hurt until her hand crept to her side in an effort to soothe it.
Before she asked the question of a man coming to the spring with
a pail in his hand, she knew the answer. It was Peter Morrison's
house. Marian sprang across the brook, climbed to the temporary
roadway, and walked down in front of the building. She stood
looking at it intently. It was in a rough stage, but much
disguise is needed to prevent a mother from knowing her own
child. Marian's dark eyes began to widen and to blaze. She
walked up to the front of the house and found that rough flooring
had been laid so that she could go over the first floor. When
she had done this she left the back door a deeply indignant
woman.
"There is some connection," she told herself tersely, "between my
lost sketch and this house, which is merely a left-to-right
rehearsal of my plans; and it's the same plan with which Henry
Anderson won the Nicholson and Snow prize money and the still
more valuable honor of being the prize winner. What I want to
know is how such a wrong may be righted, and what Peter Morrison
has to do with it."
Stepping from the back door, Marian followed the well-worn
pathway that led to the garage, looking right and left for Peter,
and she was wondering what she would say to him if she met him.
She was thinking that perhaps she had better return to San
Francisco and talk the matter over with Mr. Snow before she said
anything to anyone else; by this time she had reached the garage
and stood in its wide-open door. She looked in at the cot, left
just as someone had arisen from it, at the row of clothing
hanging on a rough wooden rack at the back, at the piled boxes,
at the big table, knocked together from rough lumber, in the
center, scattered and piled with books and magazines; and then
her eyes fixed intently on a packet lying on the table beside a
typewriter and a stack of paper and envelopes. She walked over
and picked up the packet. As she had known the instant she saw
them, they were her letters. She stood an instant holding them
in her hand, a dazed expression on her face. Mechanically she
reached out and laid her hands on the closed typewriter to steady
herself. Something about it appealed to her as familiar. She
looked at it closely, then she lifted the cover and examined the
machine. It was the same machine that had stood for years in
Doctor Strong's library, a machine upon which she had typed
business letters for her own father, and sometimes she had copied
lectures and book manuscript on it for Doctor Strong. Until his
house was completed and his belongings arrived, Peter undoubtedly
had borrowed it. Suddenly a wild desire to escape swept over
Marian. Her first thought was of her feelings. She was angry,
and justly so. In her heart she had begun to feel that the
letters she was receiving were from Peter Morrison. Here was the
proof.
Could it be possible that in their one meeting Peter had decided
that she was his dream woman, that in some way he had secured
that rough sketch of her plans, and from them was preparing her
dream house for her? The thought sped through her brain that he
was something more than human to have secured those plans, to
have found that secluded and choice location. For an instant she
forgot the loss of the competition in trying to comprehend the
wonder of finding her own particular house fitting her own
particular location as naturally as one of its big boulders.
She tried to replace the package of letters exactly as she had
found them. On tiptoe she slipped back to the door and looked
searchingly down the road, around, and as far as possible through
the house. Then she gathered her skirts, stepped from the
garage, and began the process of effacing herself on the mountain
side From clump to clump of the thickest bushes, crouching below
the sage and greasewood, pausing to rest behind lilac and elder,
with. out regard for her traveling suit or her beautifully shod
feet, Marian fled from her location. When at last she felt that
she was completely hidden and at least a mile from the spot, she
dropped panting on a boulder, brushing the debris from her
skirts, lifting trembling hands to straighten her hat, and
ruefully contemplating her shoes. Then she tried to think in a
calm, dispassionate, and reasonable manner, but she found it a
most difficult process. Her mind was not well ordered, neither
was it at her command. It whirled and shot off at unexpected
tangents and danced as irresponsibly as a grasshopper from one
place to another. The flying leaps it took ranged from San
Francisco to Lilac Valley, from her location upon which Peter
Morrison was building her house, to Linda. Even John Gilman
obtruded himself once more. At one minute she was experiencing a
raging indignation against Henry Anderson. How had he secured
her plan? At another she was trying to figure dispassionately
what connection Peter Morrison could have had with the building
of his house upon her plan. Every time Peter came into the
equation her heart arose in his defense. In some way his share
in the proceeding was all right. He had cared for her and he had
done what he thought would please her. Therefore she must be
pleased, although forced to admit to herself that she would have
been infinitely more pleased to have built her own house in her
own way.
She was hungry to see Linda. She wanted Katherine O'Donovan to
feed her and fuss over her and entertain her with her mellow
Irish brogue; but if she went to them and disclosed her presence
in the valley, Peter would know about it, and if he intended the
building he was erecting as a wonderful surprise for her, then
she must not spoil his joy. Plan in any way she could, Marian
could see no course left to her other than to slip back to the
station and return to San Francisco without meeting any of her
friends. She hurriedly ate her lunch, again straightened her
clothing, went to the restaurant for her traveling bag, and took
the car for the station where she waited for a return train to
San Francisco She bought a paper and tried to concentrate upon it
in an effort to take her mind from her own problems so that, when
she returned to them, she would be better able to think clearly,
to reason justly, to act wisely. She was very glad when her
train came and she was started on her way northward. At the
first siding upon which it stopped to allow the passing of a
south-bound limited, she was certain that as the cars flashed by,
in one of them she saw Eugene Snow. She was so certain that when
she reached the city she immediately called the office and asked
for Mr. Snow only to be told that he had gone away for a day or
two on business. After that Marian's thought was confused to the
point of exasperation.
It would be difficult to explain precisely the state of mind in
which Linda, upon arriving at her home that afternoon, received
from Katy the information that a man named Snow had been waiting
an hour for her in the living room. Linda's appearance was that
of a person so astonished that Katy sidled up to her giving
strong evidence of being ready to bristle.
"Ye know, lambie," she said with elaborate indifference, "ye
aren't havin' to see anybody ye don't want to. If it's somebody
intrudin' himself on ye, just say the word and I'll fire him;
higher than Guilderoy's kite I'll be firin' him."
"No, I must see him, Katy," said Linda quietly. "And have
something specially nice for dinner. Very likely I'll take him
to see Peter Morrison's house and possibly I'll ask him and Peter
to dinner. He is a San Francisco architect from the firm where
Marian takes her lessons, and it's business about Peter's house.
I was surprised, that's all."
Then Linda turned and laid a hand on each of Katy's hairy red
arms.
"Katherine O'Donovan, old dear," she said, "if we do come back
for dinner, concentrate on Mr. Snow and study him. Scrutinize,
Katy! It's a bully word. Scrutinize closely. To add one more to
our long lists of secrets, here's another. He's the man I told
you about who has asked Marian to marry him, and Marian has
refused him probably because she prefers somebody nearer home."
Then Linda felt the tensing of every muscle in Katy's body. She
saw the lift of her head, the incredulous, resentful look in her
eyes. There was frank hostility in her tone.
"Well, who is there nearer home that Marian knows?" she demanded
belligerently.
"Well, now, who would there be?" retorted Linda.
"Ye ain't manin' John Gilman?" asked Katy.
"No," said Linda, "I am not meaning John Gilman. You should know
Marian well enough to know that."
"Well, ye ought to know yourself well enough to know that they
ain't anybody else around these diggin's that Marian Thorne's
going to get," said Katy.
"I imagine Marian will get pretty much whom she wants," said
Linda laughingly. "In your heart, Katy, you know that Marian
need not have lost John Gilman if she had not deliberately let
him go. If she had been willing to meet Eileen on her own ground
and to play the game with her, it wouldn't have happened. Marian
has more brains in a minute than Eileen has in a month."
When Linda drew back the portiere and stepped into the living
room Eugene Snow rose to meet her. What either of them expected
it might be difficult to explain. Knowing so little of each
other, it is very possible that they had no visualizations. What
Snow saw was what everyone saw who looked at Linda--a girl
arrestingly unusual. With Linda lay the advantage by far, since
she had Marian's letters for a background. What she saw was a
tall man, slender, and about him there was to Linda a strong
appeal. As she looked into his eyes, she could feel the double
hurt that Fate had dealt him. She thought she could fathom the
fineness in his nature that had led him to made home-building his
chosen occupation. Instantly she liked him. With only one look
deep into his eyes she was on his side. She stretched out both
her hands and advanced.
"Now isn't this the finest thing of you?" she said. "I am so
glad that you came. I'll tell you word for word what happened
here."
"That will be fine," he said. "Which is your favorite chair?"
"You know," she said, "that is a joke. I am so unfamiliar with
this room that I haven't any favorite chair. I'll have to take
the nearest, like Thoreau selected his piece of chicken."
Then for a few minutes Linda talked frankly. She answered Eugene
Snow's every question unhesitatingly and comprehensively.
Together they ascended the stairs, and in the guest room she
showed him the table at which she and Marian had studied the
sketches of plans, and exactly where they had left them lying
overnight.
"The one thing I can't be explicit about," said Linda, "is how
many sheets were there in the morning. We had stayed awake so
late talking, that we overslept. I packed Marian's bag while she
dressed. I snatched up what there were without realizing whether
there were two sheets or three, laid them in the flat bottom of
the case, and folded her clothing on top of them."
"I see," said Mr. Snow comprehendingly. "Now let's experiment a
little. Of course the window before that table was raised?"
"Yes, it was," said Linda, "but every window in the house is
screened."
"And what about the door opening into the hall? Can you tell me
whether it was closed or open?"
"It was open," said Linda. "We left it slightly ajar to create a
draft; the night was warm."
"Is there anyone about the house," inquired Mr. Snow, "who could
tell us certainly whether that window was screened that night?"
"Of course," said Linda. "Our housekeeper, Katherine O'Donovan,
would know. When we go down we'll ask her."
On their return to the living room, for the first time in her
life Linda rang for Katy. She hesitated an instant before she
did it. It would be establishing a relationship that never
before had existed between them. She always had gone to Katy as
she would have, gone to her mother. She would have gone to her
now, but she wanted Katy to make her appearance and give her
information without the possibility of previous discussion. Katy
answered the bell almost at once. Linda went to her side and
reached her arm across her shoulders.
"Katy," she said, "this is Mr. Eugene Snow of San Francisco He is
interested in finding out exactly what became of that lost plan
of Marian's that we have looked for so carefully. Put on your
thinking cap, old dear, and try to answer accurately any question
that Mr. Snow may wish to ask you."
Katy looked expectantly at Eugene Snow.
"In the meantime," said Linda, "I'll be excused and go bring
round the Bear Cat."
"I have only one question to ask you," said Mr. Snow. "Can you
recall whether, for any reason, there was a screen out of the
guest-room window directly in front of which the reading table
was standing the night Miss Marian occupied the room before
leaving for San Francisco?"
"Sure there was," answered Katy instantly in her richest,
mellowest brogue.
She was taking the inventory she had been told to take. She was
deciding, as instantly as Linda had done, that she liked this
man. Years, appearance, everything about him appealed to Katy as
being exactly right for Marian; and her cunning Irish mind was
leaping and flying and tugging at the leash that thirty years of
conventions had bound upon her.
"Sure," she repeated, "the wildest santana that ever roared over
us just caught that screen and landed it slam against the side of
the garage, and it set inside for three days till I could get a
workman to go up the outside and put it back. It had been out
two days before the night Marian was here."
"Did Miss Linda know about it?" asked Snow.
"Not that I know of," said Katy. "She is a schoolgirl, you know,
off early in the morning, back and up to her room, the busiest
youngster the valley knows; and coin' a dale of good she is, too.
It was Miss Eileen that heard the screen ripped out and told me
it was gone. She's the one who looked after the housekapin' and
paid the bills. She knew all about it. If 'twould be helpin'
Miss Marian any about findin' them plans we've ransacked the
premises for, I couldn't see any reason why Miss Eileen wouldn't
tell ye the same as I'm tellin' ye, and her housekapin' accounts
and her cheque book would show she paid the carpenter, if it's
legal business you're wantin'."
"Thank you, Katy," said Mr. Snow. "I hope nothing of that kind
will occur. A great wrong has been perpetrated, but we must find
some way to right it without involving such extremely nice young
women in the annoyance of legal proceedings."
Katy folded her arms and raised her head. All her share of the
blarney of Ireland began to roll from the mellow tip of her
tongue.
"Now, the nice man ye are, to be seein' the beauty of them girls
so quick," she said. "The good Lord airly in the mornin' of
creation thought them out when He was jist fresh from rist, and
the material was none shopworn. They ain't ladies like 'em
anywhere else in the whole of California, and belave me, a many
rale ladies have I seen in my time. Ye can jist make up your
mind that Miss Linda is the broth of the earth. She is her
father's own child and she is like him as two pase in the pod.
And Marian growed beside her, and much of a hand I've had in her
raisin' meself, and well I'm knowin' how fine she is and what a
juel she'd be, set on any man's hearthstone. I'm wonderin',"
said Katy challengingly, "if you're the Mr. Snow at whose place
she is takin' her lessons, and if ye are, I'm wonderin' if ye
ain't goin' to use the good judgment to set her, like the juel
she would be, ia the stone of your own hearth."
Eugene Snow looked at Katy intently. He was not accustomed to
discussing his affairs with household helpers, but he could not
look at Katy without there remaining in his vision the forte of
Linda standing beside her, a reassuring arm stretched across her
shoulders, the manner in which she had presented her and then
left her that she might be free to answer as she chose with out
her young mistress even knowing exactly what was asked of her.
Such faith and trust and love were unusual.
"I might try to do that very thing," he said, "but, you know, a
wonderful woman is an animated jewel. You can't manufacture a
setting and put her in and tighten the clasps without her
consent."
"Then why don't you get it?" said Katy casually.
Eugene Snow laughed ruefully.
"But suppose," he said, "that the particular jewel you're
discussing prefers to select her own setting, and mine does not
please her."
"Well, they's jist one thing," said Katy. Her heels left the
floor involuntarily; she arose on her tiptoes; her shoulders came
up, and her head lifted to a height it never had known before.
"They's jist one thing," she said. "Aside from Miss Linda, who
is my very own child that I have washed and I have combed and I
have done for since she was a toddlin' four-year-old, they ain't
no woman in this world I would go as far for as I would for Miss
Marian; but I'm tellin' ye now, ye Mr. Eujane Snow, that they's
one thing I don't lend no countenance to. I am sorry she has had
the cold, cruel luck that she has, but I ain't sorry enough that
I'm goin' to stand for her droppin' herself into the place where
she doesn't belong. If the good Lord ain't give her the sense to
see that you're jist the image of the man that would be jist
exactly right for her, somebody had better be tellin' her so.
Anyway, if Miss Linda is takin' ye up to the house that Mr. Pater
Morrison is buildin' and the Pater man is there, I would advise
ye to cast your most discernin' eye on that gintleman. Ye watch
him jist one minute when he looks at the young missus and he
thinks nobody ain't observing him, and ye'll see what ye'll see.
If ye want Marian, ye jist go on and take her. I'm not carin'
whether ye use a club or white vi'lets, but don't ye be lettin'
Marian Thorne get no idea into her head that she is goin' to take
Mr. Pater Morrison, because concernin' Pater I know what I know,
and I ain't goin' to stand by and see things goin' wrong for want
of spakin' up. Now if you're a wise man, ye don't nade nothing
further said on the subject."
Eugene Snow thought intently for a few moments. His vision
centered on Katherine O'Donovan's face.
"You're absolutely sure of this?" he said at last.
"Jist as sure as the sun's sure, and the mountains, and the
seaSons come and go," said Katy with finality. "Watch him and
you'll see it stickin' out all over him. I have picked him for
me boss, and it's jist adorin' that man crature I am."
"What about Miss Linda?" inquired Snow. "Is she adoring him?"
"She ain't nothing but a ganglin' school kid, adorin' the spade
with which she can shoot around that Bear Cat of hers, and race
the canyons, and the rely lovely things she can strike on paper
with her pencil and light up with her joyous colors. Her day and
her hour ain't come, and the Pater man's that fine he won't lay a
finger on her to wake her up when she has a year yet of her
schoolin' before her. But in the manetime it's my job to stand
guard as I'm standin' right now. I'm tellin' ye frank and fair.
Ye go on and take Marian Thorne because ye ought to have her. If
she's got any idea in her head that she's goin' to have Pater
Morrison, she'll have to get it out."
Eugene Snow held out his hand and started to the front door in
answer to the growl of the Bear Cat. As he came down the steps
and advanced to the car, Linda, with the quick eye that had been
one of her special gifts as a birthright, noted a change in him.
He seemed to have been keyed up and toned up. There was a
different expression on his face. There was buoyancy in his
step. There was a visible determination in his eye. He took the
seat beside her and Linda started the car. She looked at him
interrogatively.
"Can you connect a heavy wind with the date of the lost plan?" he
inquired.
"There was a crack-a-jack a few days before," said Linda. "It
blew over some trees in the lot next to us."
"Exactly," said Snow; "and it plucked a screen from your
guest-room window. Katy thinks that the cheque to the carpenter
and the cost of the repairs will be in your sister's account
books."
"Um hm," nodded Linda. "Well, that simplifies matters, because
Peter Morrison is going to tell you about a trip Henry Anderson
made around our house the morning Marian left."
"I think that is about all we need to know," said Mr. Snow
conclusively.
"I think so," said Linda, "but I want you to see Peter's house
for yourself, since I understand that according to your contract
the rights to reproduce these particular plans remained with you
after you had paid prize money for them."
"Most certainly," said Mr. Snow. "We should have that much to
show for our share of the transaction."
"It's a queer thing," said Linda. "You would have to know me a
long time, and perhaps know under what conditions I have been
reared in order to understand a feeling that I frequently have
concerning people. I tobogganed down a sheer side of Multiflores
Canyon one day without my path having been previously prepared,
and I very nearly landed in the automobile that carried Henry
Anderson and Peter Morrison on their first trip to Lilac Valley.
I was much interested in preserving the integrity of my neck. I
fervently hoped not to break more than a dozen of my legs and
arms, and was forced to bring down intact the finest Cotyledon
pulverulenta that Daddy or I had found in fourteen years of
collecting in California. I am telling you all this that you may
see why I might have been excused for not having been minutely
observant of my surroundings when I landed. But what I did
observe was a chilly, caterpillary sensation chasing up my spine
the instant I met the eyes of Henry Anderson. In that instant I
said to myself that I would not trust him, that I did not like
him."
"And what about his companion?" asked Eugene Snow lightly. "Oh,
Peter?" said Linda. There was a caress in her pronunciation of
the name. "Why, Peter is a rock. The instant I deposited my
Cotyledon in a safe place I would have put my hand in Peter
Morrison's and started around the world if he had asked me to go.
There is only one Peter. You will recognize that the instant you
meet him."
"I am altogether willing to take your word for it," said Mr.
Snow.
"And there is one thing about this disagreeable business," said
Linda. "It was not Peter's coat that had the plan in it. He
knew nothing about it. He has had his full service of stiff war
work, and he has been knocking around big cities in newspaper
work, and now he has come home to Lilac Valley to 'set up his
rest,' as in the hymn book, you know. He built his garage first
and he is living in it because he so loves this house of his that
he has to be present to watch it grow in minutes" detail. Once
on a time I saw a great wizard walking along the sidewalk, and he
looked exactly like any man. He might have been you so far as
anything different from other men in his appearance w as
concerned."
Linda cut down the Bear Cat to its slowest speed.
"What is on my mind is this," she said. "I don't think Peter
could quite afford the amount of ground he has bought, and the
house he is building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in
obligations. It may take him two or three years to come even on
it; but it is a prepossession with him. Now can't you see that
if we go to him and tell him this sordid, underhand, unmanly
tale, how his fine nature is going to be hurt, how his big heart
is going to be wrung, how his home-house that he is building with
such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old Man of the Sea
clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. Eugene Snow, that you're
enough of a wizard to examine this house and to satisfy yourself
as to whether it's an infringement of your plans or not, without
letting Peter know the things about it that would spoil it for
him?"
Eugene Snow reached across and closed a hand over the one of
Linda's nearest him on the steering wheel.
"You very decent kid, you," he said appreciatively. "I certainly
am enough of a wizard to save your Peter man any disillusionment
concerning his dream house."
"Oh, but he is not my Peter man," said Linda. "We are only the
best friends in the world. Really and truly, if you can keep a
secret, he's Marian's."
"Is he?" asked Mr. Snow interestedly. And then he added very
casually, in the most offhand manner--he said it more to an
orange orchard through which they were passing than he said it to
Linda--"I have very grave doubts about that. I think there must
be some slight complication that will have to be cleared up."
Linda's heart gave a great jump of consternation.
"Indeed no," she said emphatically. "I don't think he has just
told Marian yet, but I am very sure that he cares for her more
than for any other woman, and I am equally sure she cares for
him; and nothing could be more suitable."
"All right then," agreed Mr. Snow.
Linda put the Bear Cat at the mountain, crept around the road,
skirted the boulders, and stopped halfway to the garage. And
there, in a low tone, she indicated to Mr. Snow where they had
lunched, when she found the plans, how she had brought out the
coat, where she had emptied the mouse nest. Then she stepped
from the car and hallooed for Peter. Peter came hurrying from
the garage, and Eugene Snow was swift in his mental inventory.
It coincided exactly with Linda's. He would have been willing to
join hands with Peter and start around the world, quite convinced
of the fairness of the outcome, with no greater acquaintance than
one intent look at Peter, one grip of his sure hand. After that
he began to act on Katy's hint, and in a very short time he had
convinced himself that she was right. Maybe Peter tried to
absorb himself in the plans he was going over, in the house he
was proud to show the great architect; but it seemed to the man
he was entertaining that his glance scarcely left Linda, that he
was so preoccupied with where she went and what she did that he
was like a juggler keeping two mental balls in the air at the
same time.
It seemed to Peter a natural thing that, the architect being in
the city on business, he should run out to call on Miss Thorne's
dearest friend It seemed to him equally natural that Linda should
bring him to see a house in which she was so kindly interesting
herself. And just when Peter was most dexterous in his juggling,
just when he was trying to explain the very wonderful
step-saving' time-saving, rational kitchen arrangements and at
the same time watch Linda on her course down to the spring, the
architect halted him with a jerk. Eugene Snow stood very
straight, his hands in his coat pockets, looking, Peter supposed,
with interest at the arrangements of kitchen conveniences. His
next terse sentence fairly staggered Peter. He looked him
straight in the eye and inquired casually: "Chosen your dream
woman to fit your house, Morrison?"
Peter was too surprised to conceal his feelings. His jaws
snapped together; a belligerent look sprang into his eyes.
"I have had a good deal to do with houses," continued Mr. Snow.
"They are my life work. I find that invariably they are built
for a woman. Almost always they are built from her plans, and
for her pleasure. It's a new house, a unique house, a wonderful
house you're evolving here. It must be truly a wonderful woman
you're dreaming about while you build it."
That was a nasty little trap. With his years and worldly
experience Peter should not have fallen into it; but all men are
children when they are sick, heart sick or body sick, and Peter
was a very sick man at that minute. He had been addressed in
such a frank and casual manner. His own brain shot off at queer
tangents and led him constantly into unexpected places. The
narrow side lane that opened up came into view so suddenly that
Peter, with the innocence of a four-year-old, turned with
military precision at the suggestion and looked over the premises
for the exact location of Linda. Eugene Snow had seen for
himself the thing that Katy had told him he would see if he
looked for it. Suddenly he held out his hand.
"As man to man, Morrison, in this instance," he said in rather a
hoarse, breathless voice, "don't you think it would be a good
idea for you and me to assert our manhood, to manage our own
affairs, to select our own wives if need be? If we really set
ourselves to the job don't you believe we can work out our lives
more to our liking than anyone else can plan for us? You get the
idea, don't you, Morrison?"
Peter was facing the kitchen sink but he did not see it. His
brain was whirling. He did see Snow's point of view. He did
realize his position. But what Mr. Snow knew of his affairs he
could only guess. The one thing Mr. Snow could not know was that
Linda frankly admitted her prepossession for her school chum,
Donald Whiting, but in any event if Peter could not have Linda he
would much prefer occupying his dream house alone. So he caught
at the straw held out to him with both hands.
"I get you," he said tersely. "It is not quite up to the mark of
the manhood we like to think we possess to let our lives be
engineered by a high school kid. Suppose we do just quietly and
masterfully assert ourselves concerning our own affairs."
"Suppose we do," said Snow with finality.
Whereupon they shook hands with a grip that whitened their
knuckles.
Then they went back to Lilac Valley and had their dinner
together, and Linda and Peter escorted Eugene Snow to his train
and started him on his return trip to San Francisco feeling very
much better. Peter would not allow Linda to drive him home at
night, so he left her after the Bear Cat had been safely placed
in the garage. As she stood on the walk beside him, strongly
outlined in the moonlight, Peter studied Linda whimsically. He
said it half laughingly, but there was something to think about
in what he said:
"I'm just picturing, Linda, what a nice old lady you will be by
the time that high school kid of yours spends four years in
college, one on the continent, and the Lord knows how many at
mastering a profession."
Linda looked at him with widened eyes.
KATY UNBURDENS HER MIND 307
"Why, what are you talking about, Peter? Are you moonstruck?"
she inquired solicitously. "Donald's only a friend, you know. I
love him because he is the nicest companion; but there is nothing
for you to be silly about."
Then Peter began to realize the truth. There wasn't anything for
him to be concerned about. She had not the slightest notion what
love meant, even as she announced that she loved Donald.
CHAPTER XXX. Peter's Release
Eugene Snow returned to San Francisco enthusiastic about Linda,
while he would scarcely have known how to express his
appreciation of Katherine O'Donovan. He had been served a
delicious dinner, deftly and quietly, such food as men
particularly like; but there had been no subservience. If
Katherine O'Donovan had been waiting on her own table, serving
her own friends she could not have managed with more pride. It
was very evident that she loved service, that she loved the girl
to whom she gave constant attention. He understood exactly what
there was in her heart and why she felt as she did when he saw
Linda and Peter together and heard their manner of speaking to
each other, and made mental note of the many points of interest
which seemed to exist between them. He returned to San Francisco
with a good deal of a "See-the-conquering-hero-comes" mental
attitude. He went directly to his office, pausing on the way for
a box of candy and a bunch of Parma violets. His first act on
reaching the office was to send for Miss Thorne. Marian came
almost immediately, a worried look in her eyes. She sat in the
big, cushioned chair that was offered her, and smiled faintly
when the box was laid on her lap, topped with the violets. She
looked at Eugene Snow with an "I-wish-you-wouldn't" expression on
her face; but he smiled at her reassuringly.
"Nothing," he said. "Picked them up on the way from the station.
I made a hasty trip to that precious Lilac Valley of yours, and I
must say it pales your representation. It is a wonderfully
lovely spot."
Marian settled back in the chair. She picked up the violets and
ran an experienced finger around the stems until she found the
pin with which she fastened them at her waist. Then as they
occupied themselves making selections from the candy box he
looked smilingly at Marian. Her eyes noted the change in him.
He was neither disappointed nor sad. Something had happened in
Lilac Valley that had changed his perspective. Womanlike, she
began probing.
"Glad you liked my valley," she said. "We are told that blue is
a wonderful aura to surround a person, and it's equally wonderful
when it surrounds a whole valley. With the blue sky and the blue
walls and a few true-blue friends I have there, it's naturally a
very dear spot to me."
"Yes," said Mr. Snow, "I can see that it is. I ran down on a
business matter. I have been deeply puzzled and much perturbed
over this prize contest. We have run these affairs once a year,
sometimes oftener, for a long time, so I couldn't understand the
peculiar thing about the similarity of the winning plans and your
work this year. I have been holding up the prize money, because
I did not feel that you were saying exactly what was in your
heart, and I couldn't be altogether satisfied that everything was
right. I went to Lilac Valley because I had a letter from your
friend, Miss Linda Strong. There was an enclosure in it."
He drew from his pocket the folded sheet and handed it to Marian.
Her eyes were surprised, incredulous, as she opened the missing
sheet from her plans, saw the extraneous lines drawn upon it and
the minute figuring with which the margin was covered.
"Linda found it at last!" she cried. "Where in this world did
she get it, and whose work is this on it?"
"She got it," said Eugene Snow, "when she undertook to clean
Peter Morrison's workroom on an evening when she and her cook
were having supper with him. She turned a coat belonging to his
architect that hung with some of his clothing in Peter Morrison's
garage. She was shaking the nest of a field mouse from one of
the side pockets. Naturally this emptied all the pockets, and in
gathering up their contents she came across that plan, which she
recognized. She thought it was right to take it and very wisely
felt that it was man's business, so she sent it to me with her
explanations. I went to Lilac Valley because I wanted to judge
for myself exactly what kind of young person she was. I wanted
to see her environment. I wanted to see the house that she felt
sure was being built from these plans. I wanted to satisfy
myself of the stability of what I had to work on before I
mentioned the matter to you or Henry Anderson."
Marian sat holding the plan, listening absorbedly to what he was
saying.
"It's an ugly business," he said, "so ugly that there is no
question whatever but that it can be settled very quietly and
without any annoyance to you. I shall have to take the matter up
with the board, but I have the details so worked out that I shall
have no difficulty in arranging matters as I think best. There
is no question whatever, Marian, but Anderson found that sketch
on the west side of the Strong residence. When you left your
plans lying on a table before a window in the Strong guestroom
the night before you came to San Francisco you did not know that
the santana which raged through the valley a day or two
previously had stripped a screen from the window before which you
left them. In opening your door to establish a draft before you
went to bed you started one that carried your top drawing through
the window. Waiting for Miss Strong the next morning, in making
a circuit of the grounds Anderson found it and appropriated it to
most excellent advantage. Miss Linda tells me that your study of
architecture was discussed at the dinner table that night. He
could not have helped realizing that any sheet of plans he found
there must have been yours. If he could acquit his conscience of
taking them and using them, he would still have to explain why he
was ready to accept the first prize and the conditions imposed
when he already had a house fairly well under construction from
the plans he submitted in the contest. The rule is unbreakable
that the plans must be original, must be unused, must be our sole
property, if they take the prize."
Marian was leaning forward, her eyes wide with interest, her
breast agitated. She nodded in acquiescence. Eugene Snow
reached across and helped himself to another piece of candy from
the box on her knee. He looked at her speculatively and spoke
quietly as if the matter were of no great importance.
"Would it be agreeable, Marian, if the prize committee should
annOunce that there were reasons as to why they were not
satisfied, that they have decided to return all plans and call
off the present contest, opening another in a few months in which
interested parties may again submit their drawings? I will
undertake swiftly and comprehensively to eliminate Henry Anderson
from California. I would be willing to venture quite a sum that
when I finish with the youngster he will see the beauty of going
straight hereafter and the desirability of a change of
atmosphere. He's a youngster. I hate to make the matter public,
not only on account of involving you and your friends in such
disagreeable business, but I am sorry for him. I would like to
deal with him like the proverbial 'Dutch uncle,' then I would
like to send him away to make a new start with the assurance that
I am keeping close watch on him. Would you be satisfied if I
handled the matter quietly and in my own way? Could you wait a
few weeks for justice?"
Marian drew a deep breath.
"Of course," she said, "it would be wonderful if you could do
that. But what about Peter Morrison? How much did he know
concerning the plans, and what does he know about this?"
"Nothing," said Mr. Snow. "That most unusual young friend of
yours made me see the light very clearly concerning Peter
Morrison. There is no necessity for him ever to know that the
'dream house,' as Miss Linda calls it, that he is building for
his dream woman has any disagreeable history attached to it. He
so loves the spot that he is living on it to watch that house in
minutest detail. Miss Linda was fairly eloquent in the plea she
made on his behalf. He strikes me as a very unusual person, and
she
appealed to me in the same way. There must be some scientific
explanation concerning her that I don't just get, but I can see
that she is most unusual When I watched them together and heard
them talk of their plans for the house and the grounds and
discussing illustrations that she is making for articles that he
is writing, I saw how deep and wholesome was the friendship
existing between them. I even heard that wonderful serving
woman, whom they so familiarly speak of as 'Katy,' chiding Peter
Morrison for allowing Linda to take her typewriter to him and do
her own work with a pen. And because Miss Linda seems so
greathearted and loving with her friends, I was rather glad to
hear his explanation that they were merely changing machines for
the time being for a very particular reason of their own."
"Do you mean," asked Marian, "that you think there is anything
more than casual friendship between Linda and Peter Morrison?"
"Not on her part," answered Eugene Snow. "Anybody can see that
she is a child deeply engrossed in all sorts of affairs uncommon
for a girl of her age and position. Her nice perceptions, her
wonderful loyalty to her friends, her loving thought for them,
are manifest in everything she says or does. If she ever makes
any mistakes they will be from the head, not from the heart. But
for the other end of the equation I could speak authoritatively.
Katy pointed out to me the fact that if I would watch Peter
Morrison in Miss Linda's presence, I should see that he adored
her. I did watch, and I did see that very thing. When I taxed
him about building a dream house for a dream woman, his eyes
crossed a plateau, leaped a brook, and started up the side of a
mountain. They did not rest until they had found Linda."
Marian sat so still that it seemed as if she were not even
breathing. In view of what Katy had said, and his few words with
Peter Morrison, Eugene Snow had felt justified in giving Marian a
hint as to what was going on in Lilac Valley. Exactly what he
had done he had no means of knowing. If he had known and had
talked intentionally he could not have made clearer to Marian the
thing which for months had puzzled her. She was aware that
Eugene Snow was talking, that he was describing the dinner he had
been served, the wonderful wild-flower garden that he had seen,
how skillfully Linda drove the Bear Cat. She heard these things
and dimly comprehended them but underneath, her brain was seizing
upon one fact after another. They had exchanged typewriters.
The poor, foolish little kid had known how her health was
wracked, how she was suffering, how her pride would not let her
stoop to Eileen's subterfuges and wage war with her implements
for a man she did not want if her manner of living her everyday
life did not appeal to him. Linda had known how lonely and heart
hungry and disappointed she had gone away, and loyally she had
tried to create an interest in life for her; and she had
succeeded entirely too well. And then in a panic she must have
gone to Peter Morrison and explained the situation; and Peter
must have agreed to take over the correspondence. One by one
things that had puzzled her about the letters and about the whole
affair began to grow clear. She even saw how Linda, having
friendly association with no man save Peter, would naturally use
him for a model. The trouble was that, with her gift of
penetration and insight and her facility with her pen, she had
overdone the matter. She had not imitated Peter; she had BEEN
Peter. Marian arose suddenly.
She went home, locked the door, and one after another she read
the letters that had piqued, amused, comforted, and finally
intrigued her. They were brilliant letters, charming, appealing
letters, and yet, with knowledge concerning them, Marian wondered
how she could have failed to appreciate in the beginning that
they were from Linda.
"It goes to prove," she said at last, "how hungry the human heart
is for love and sympathy. And that poor kid, what she must have
suffered when she went to Peter for help! And if, as Mr. Snow
thinks, he cares for her, how he must have suffered before he
agreed to help her, as no doubt he did. What I have to do is to
find some way out of the situation that will relieve Linda's
anxiety and at least partially save my face. I shall have to
take a few days to work it out. Luckily I haven't answered my
last letter. When I find out what I really want to say then I
will be very careful how I say it. I don't just exactly relish
having my letters turned over to Peter Morrison, but possibly I
can think of some way--I must think of some way--to make them
feel that I have not been any more credulous than they."
While she thought, both Linda and Peter were doing much thinking
on the same subject. Linda's heart was full of gratitude to
Peter for helping her out of her very disagreeable situation.
Peter had not yet opened the packet of letters lying on his table
He had a sickening distaste for the whole transaction. He had
thought that he would wait until he received the first letter he
was to answer. If it gave him sufficient foundation in itself
for the answer, he would not be forced to search further. He had
smoked many pipes on this decision. After the visit of Mr. Snow,
Peter had seen a great light and had decided, from the mood and
the attitude of that gentleman after his interview with Katy,
that he very likely would be equal to any complication that might
arise when he reached San Francisco. Mulling over the situation
one day Peter said reflectively to the spring which was very busy
talking to him: "I am morally certain that this matter has
resolved itself into a situation that closely resembles the
bootblack's apple: 'they ain't goin' to be any core.' I am
reasonably certain that I never shall have a letter to answer.
In a few days probably I shall be able to turn back that packet
to Linda without having opened it."
To make up for the perturbation which had resulted in failure in
class and two weeks of work that represented her worst
appearances in high-school history, Linda, her mind freed from
the worry over Marian's plans, and her heart calmer over the
fiasco in trying to comfort her, devoted herself absorbingly to
her lessons and to the next magazine article that she must
finish. She had decided that it was time to write on the subject
of Indian confections. Her first spare minute she and Katy must
busy themselves working out the most delicious cactus candy
possible. Then they could try the mesquite candy. No doubt she
could evolve a delicious gum from the mesquite and the incense
plant. She knew she could from the willow milkweed; and under
the head of "sweets" an appetizing jelly from manzanita. There
were delightful drinks too, from the manzanita and the chia. And
better than either, the lemonade berry would serve this purpose.
She had not experimented to an authoritative extent with the
desert pickles. And among drinks she might use the tea made from
blue-eyed grass, brewed by the Indians for feverish conditions;
and there was a whole world of interest to open up in differing
seeds and berries, parched or boiled for food. And there were
the seeds that were ground for mush, like the thistle sage, and
the mock orange which was food and soap also, and the wild
sunflowers that were parched for meal, and above all, the acorns.
She could see that her problem was not going to be one of
difficulty in securing sufficient material for her book; it would
be how to find time to gather all these things, and put them
through the various processes and combinations necessary to make
edible dishes from I them. It would mean a long summer of
interesting and absorbing I work for her and for Katy. Much of
it could not be done until the I summer was far advanced and the
seeds and the berries were I ripe. She could rely on Donald to
help her search for the material. l With only herself and Katy
in the family they could give much of their time to the work.
"Where Katy will rebel," said Linda to herself, "is when it comes
to gathering sufficient seeds and parching them to make these
meal and mush dishes. She will call it 'fiddlin' business.' She
shall be propitiated with a new dress and a beautiful bonnet, and
she shall go with me frequently to the fields. The old dear
loves to ride. First thing I do I'll call at the bank again and
have our affairs properly straightened and settled there in the
light of the letter Daddy left me. Then I shall have money to
get all the furniture and the rugs and things we truly need.
I'll repaint the kitchen and get Katy some new cooking utensils
to gladden her soul. And Saturday I must make my trip with
Donald account for something worth while on the book."
All these plans were feasible. What Linda had to do was to
accomplish them, and this she proceeded to do in a swift and
businesslike manner. She soon reached the place where the whole
house with the exception of Eileen's suite had been gone over,
freshened and refurnished to her liking. The guest-room
furniture had been moved to her rejuvenated room. On the
strength of her I returns from the book she had disposed of her
furniture and was finding much girlish delight in occupying a
beautiful room, daintily decorated, comfortably furnished with
pieces of her own selection. As she and Katy stood looking over
their work when everything was ready for her first night of
occupancy Katy had said to her:
"It's jist right and proper, lambie; it's jist the way it ought
to be; and now say the word and let me clean out Eileen's suate
and get it ready for Miss Marian, so if she would drop down
unexpected she would find we was good as our word."
"All right," said Linda.
"And what am I to do with the stuff?" inquired Katy.
"Katy, my dear," said Linda with a dry laugh, "you'll think I am
foolish, but I have the queerest feeling concerning those things.
I can't feel that Eileen has done with them; I can't feel that
she will never want them again; I can't feel that they should go
to some second-hand basement. Pack all of her clothing that you
can manage in her trunk and put it in the garret, and what the
trunk won't hold pack in a tight box and put that in the garret
also. She hasn't written me a line; she has sent me no address;
I don't know what to do; but, as I have said before, I am going
to save the things at least a year and see whether some day
Eileen won't think of something she wants to do with them. Clean
the rooms and I will order Marian's things sent."
According to these arrangements it was only a few days until
Linda wrote Marian that her room was ready for her and that any
time she desired to come and take possession she could test the
lovingness of the welcome that awaited her by becoming intimately
acquainted with it. Marian answered the letter immediately. She
said that she was planning to come very soon to test that
welcome. She longed for the quiet of the valley, for its cool,
clean, wild air. She was very tired; she needed rest. She
thought she would love the new home they were offering her. Then
came two amazing paragraphs.
The other day Dana and I went into one of the big cafes in the
city to treat ourselves to a taste of the entertainment with
which the people of wealth regale themselves. We had wandered in
laughingly jesting about what we should order, and ran into
Eileen in the company of her aunt and uncle and a very flashy and
loudly dressed young man, evidently a new suitor of Eileen's. I
don't think Eileen wanted to introduce us, and yet she acted like
a person ravenous for news of her home and friends. She did
introduce us, and immediately her ponderous uncle took possession
of us. It seems that the man is a brother of Eileen's mother.
Linda, he is big and gross, he is everything that a man of nice
perceptions would not be, but he does love Eileen. He is trying
conscientiously to please her. His wife is the kind of person
who would marry that kind of man and think everything he said and
did was right. And the suitor, my dear, was the kind of man who
could endure that kind of people. Eileen was almost, if not
quite, the loveliest thing I ever have seen. She was plain; she
was simple; but it was the costly simplicity of extravagance. Ye
gods! but she had pearls of the size she had always wanted. She
tried with all her might to be herself, but she knows me well
enough to know what I would think and what I would write to you
concerning the conditions under which I met her. We were simply
forced to lunch with them. We could only nibble at the too rich,
too highly seasoned food set before us. And I noticed that
Eileen nibbled also. She is not going to grow fat and waddle and
redden her nose, but, my dear, back deep in her eyes and in the
curve of her lips and in the tone of her voice there were such
disappointment and discontent as I never have seen in any woman.
She could not suppress them; she could not conceal them. There
was nothing on earth she could do but sit quietly and endure.
They delivered us at our respective offices, leaving both of us
dates on which to visit them, but neither of us intends to call
on them. Eileen's face was a tragedy when her uncle insisted on
making the arrangements. I can at least spare her that.
And now, my dear, life is growing so full and my time is so taken
with my work at the office and with my widening friendships with
Dana and her friends and with Mr. Snow, that I really feel I have
not time to go farther with our anonymous correspondence. It is
all I can do to find time to write you letters such as the one I
am writing I have done my best to play up to what you expected of
me and I think I have succeeded in fooling you quite as much as
you have felt that you were fooling me. But, Linda dear, I want
you always to know that I appreciate the spirit in which you
began this thing. I know why you did it and I shall always love
you a trifle more for your thought of me and your effort to tide
over the very dark days you knew I would be facing in San
Francisco. I think, dear friend of mine, that I have had my
share of dark days. I think there is very beautiful sunlight
ahead for me. And by and by I hope to come into happiness that
maybe is even more than my share. I am coming to see you soon
and then I will tell you all about it.
There was more of the letter, but at that point Linda made one
headlong rush for the Bear Cat. She took the curve on two wheels
and almost ran into the mountain face behind the garage before
she could slow down. Then she set the Cat screaming wildly for
Peter. As he came up to the car she leaned toward him, shaking
with excitement.
"Peter," she cried, "have you opened that packet of letters yet?"
"No," said Peter, "I have not."
"Then give them to me quickly, Peter," said Linda.
Peter rushed into the garage and brought out the packet. Linda
caught it in both hands and dropped it in her lap.
"Well, thank God," she said devoutly. "And, Peter, the joke's on
me. Marian knew I was writing those letters all the time and she
just pretended that she cared for them to make the game
interesting for me. And when she had so many friends and so much
to do, she hadn't time for them any longer; then she pretended
that she was getting awfully in earnest in order to stop me, and
she did stop me all right."
Linda's face was a small panorama of conflicting emotions as she
appealed to Peter.
"Peter," she said in a quivering voice, "you can testify that she
stopped me properly, can't you, Peter?"
Peter tried to smile. He was older than Linda, and he was
thinking swiftly, intently.
"Yes, kid," he said with utmost corroboration, "yes, kid, she
stopped you, but I can't see that it was necessary literally to
scare the life out of you till she had you at the point where you
were thinking of taking off from a mountain or into the sea. Did
you really mean that, Linda?"
Linda relaxed suddenly. She sank back into the deeply padded
seat of the Bear Cat. A look of fright and entreaty swept into
her dark eyes.
"Yes, Peter, I did mean it," she said with finality. "I couldn't
have lived if I had hurt Marian irreparably. She has been hurt
so much already. And, Peter, it was awfully nice of you to wait
about reading these letters. Even if she only did it for a joke,
I think Marian would rather that you had not read them. Now I'll
go back home and begin to work in earnest on the head piece of
'How to Grow Good Citizens.' And I quite agree with you, Peter,
that the oath of allegiance, citizenship, and the title to a
piece of real estate are the prime requisites. People have no
business comma to our country to earn money that they intend to
carry away to invest in the development and the strengthening of
some other country that may some day be our worst enemy. I have
not found out yet how to say it in a four-by-twelve-inch strip,
but by the time I have read the article aloud to my skylight
along about ten tonight I'll get an inspiration; I am sure I
shall."
"Of course you will," said Peter; "but don't worry about it,
dear; don't lose sleep. Take things slower. Give time for a
little more flesh to grow on your bones. And don't forget that
while you're helping Donald to keep at the head of his classes
it's your
first job to keep at the head of your own."
"Thank you," said Linda. "How is the dream coming?"
"Beautifully," said Peter. "One of these days you're going to
come rushing around the boulders and down the side of the
building to find all this debris cleared away and the place for a
lawn leveled. I am fighting down every possible avenue of
expertise on the building in the effort to save money to make the
brook run and the road wind where you have indicated that you
want them to follow you."
Linda looked at Peter while a queer, reflective light gathered in
her eyes. At last she said soberly: "Well, I don't know, Peter,
that you should make them so very personal to me as all that."
"Why not?" asked Peter casually. "Since there is no one else,
why not?"
Linda released the clutch and started the car. She backed in
front of the garage and turned. She was still thinking deeply as
she stopped. Once again she extended a hand to Peter.
"Thank you a thousand times for not reading these letters,
Peter," she said. "I can't express how awfully fine I think it
is of you. And if it's all right with you, perhaps there's not
any real reason why you should not run that brook and drive that
road the way I think they should go. Somebody is going to design
them. Why shouldn't I, if it pleases you to have me?"
"It pleases me very greatly," said Peter--"more than anything
else I can think of in all the world at this minute."
And then he did a thing that he had done once or twice before.
He bent back Linda's fingers and left another kiss in the palm of
her hand, and then he closed her fingers very tightly over it.
CHAPTER XXXI. The End of Donald's Contest
The middle of the week Linda had told Katy that she intended
stocking up the Bear Cat for three and that she would take her
along on the next Saturday's trip to her canyon kitchen. It was
a day upon which she had planned to gather greens, vegetables,
and roots, and prepare a dinner wholly from the wild. She was
fairly sure exactly where in nature she would find the materials
she wanted, but she knew that the search would be long and
tiring. It would be jolly to have Katy to help her prepare the
lunch. It would please Katy immensely to be taken; and the
original things she said in her quaint Irish brogue greatly
amused Donald. The arrangement had been understood among them
for some time, so they all started on their journey filled with
happy expectations. They closed the house and the garage
carefully. Linda looked over the equipment of the Bear Cat
minutely making sure that her field axe, saw, knives, and her
field glasses were in place. Because more food than usual was to
be prepared in the kitchen they took along a nest of cooking
vessels and a broiler. They found Donald waiting before either
of them were ready, and in great glee, with much laughing and
many jests they rolled down the valley in the early morning.
They drove to the kitchen, spread their blankets, set up their
table, and arranged the small circular opening for their day's
occupancy. While Katy and Linda were busy with these affairs
Donald took the axe and collected a big heap of wood. Then they
left Katy to burn the wood and have a deep bed of coals ready
while they started out to collect from the canyon walls, the foot
of the mountains, and the near-by desert the materials they would
use for their dinner.
Just where the desert began to climb the mountain Linda had for a
long time watched a big bed of amole. Donald used the shovel,
she the hatchet, and soon they had brought to the surface such a
quantity that Donald protested.
"But I have two uses for them today," explained Linda. "They
must serve for potatoes and they have to furnish our meat."
"Oh, I get you," said Donald. "I have always been crazy to try
that."
So he began to dig again enthusiastically.
"Now I'll tell you what I think we had better do," said Linda.
"We will skirmish around this side of the mountain and find a
very nice tender yucca shoot; and then we'll take these back to
Katy and let her bury them in the ashes and keep up the fire
while we forage for the remainder of our wild Indian feast."
Presently they found a yucca head that Linda said was exactly
right, a delicate pink, thicker than her wrist and two feet in
length. With this and the amole they ran back to Katy. She knew
how to prepare the amole for roasting. Linda gave her a few
words of instruction concerning the yucca. Then from the
interior of the Bear Cat she drew a tightly rolled section of
wire window screening. Just where a deep, wide pool narrowed at
a rocky defile they sank the screening, jammed it well to the
bottom, fastened it tight at the sides, and against the current
side of it they threw leaves, grass, chunks of moss, any debris
they could gather that would make a temporary dam. Then,
standing on one side with her field knife, Linda began to slice
the remainder of the amole very thin and to throw it over the
surface of the pool. On the other, Donald pounded the big, juicy
bulbs to pulp and scattered it broadcast over the water. Linda
instructed Katy to sit on the bank with a long-handled landing
net and whenever a trout arose, to snatch it out as speedily as
possible, being careful not to take more than they would require.
Then the two youngsters, exhilarated with youth, with living,
with the joy of friendship, with the lure of the valley, with the
heady intoxication of the salt breeze and the gold of the
sunshine, climbed into the Bear Cat and went rolling through the
canyon and out to the valley on the far side. Here they gathered
the tenderest heart shoots of the lupin until Linda said they had
enough. Then to a particular spot that she knew on the desert
they hurried for the enlarged stems of the desert trumpet which
was to serve that day for an appetizer in the stead of pickles.
Here, too, they filled a bucket from the heart of a big Bisnaga
cactus as a basis for their drink. Among Katherine O'Donovan's
cooking utensils there was a box of delicious cactus candy made
from the preserved and sun-dried heart meat of this same fruit
which was to serve as their confection. On the way back they
stopped at the bridge and gathered cress for their salad. When
they returned to Katy she had five fine trout lying in the shade,
and with more experienced eyes and a more skillful hand Linda in
a few minutes doubled this number. Then they tore out the dam,
rinsed the screen and spread it over a rock to dry. While Donald
scaled the fish Linda put the greens to cook, prepared the salad
and set the table. Once, as he worked under her supervision,
Linda said to Donald: "Now about bread, kid--there's not going
to be any bread, because the Indians did not have it when they
lived the way we are living today. When you reach the place
where your left hand feels empty without a piece of bread in it,
just butter up another amole and try it. It will serve the same
purpose as bread, and be much better for the inner man."
"If you would let me skin these fish," said Donald, "I could do
it much faster and make a better job of it."
"But you shouldn't skin them; you want the skin to hold the meat
together when it begins to cook tender; and you should be able to
peel it off and discard it if it burns or gets smoky in the
cooking. It's a great concession to clean them as we do. The

Indians cooked them in the altogether and ate the meat from the
bones."
"Oh my tummy!" said Donald. "I always thought there was some
dark secret about the Indians."
Linda sat on a rock opposite him and clasped her hands around her
knees. She looked at him meditatively.
"Did you?" she asked. "Suppose you revise that opinion. Our
North American Indians in their original state were as fine as
any peoples that ever have been discovered the round of the
globe. My grandfather came into intimate contact with them in
the early days, and he said that their religion, embracing the
idea of a great spirit to whom they were responsible for their
deeds here, and a happy hunting ground to which they went as a
reward for decent living, was as fine as any religion that ever
has been practiced by people of any nation. Immorality was
unknown among them. Family ties were formed and they were
binding They loved their children and reared them carefully.
They were hardy and healthful. Until the introduction of whiskey
and what we are pleased to term civilized methods of living, very
few of them died save from war or old age. They were free; they
were happy. The moping, lazy, diseased creature that you find
sleeping in the sun around the reservations is a product of our
civilization. Nice commentary on civilization, isn't it?"
"For heaven's sake, Linda," said Donald, "don't start any big
brainstorming trains of thought today! Grant me repose. I have
overworked my brain for a few months past until I know only one
thing for certain."
"All right then, me lad, this is the time for the big secret,"
said Linda. "I just happened to be in the assembly room on some
business of my own last Thursday afternoon when my sessions were
over, and I overheard your professor in trigonometry tell a marl
I did not know, who seemed to be a friend visiting him, that the
son of Judge Whiting was doing the finest work that ever had been
done in any of the Los Angeles high schools, and that undoubtedly
you were going to graduate with higher honors than any other boy
ever had from that school."
Donald sat thinking this over. He absently lifted an elbow and
wiped the tiny scales from his face with his shirt sleeve.
"Young woman," he said solemnly, "them things what you're saying,
are they 'cross your heart, honest to goodness, so help you,'
truth, or are they the fruit of a perfervid imagination?"
Linda shook her head vigorously.
"De but', kid," she said, "de gospel but'. You have the Jap
going properly. He can't stop you now. You have fought your
good fight, and you have practically won it. All you have to do
is to carry on till the middle of June, and you're It."
"I wish Dad knew," said Donald in a low voice.
"The Judge does know," said Linda heartily. "It wasn't fifteen
minutes after I heard that till I had him on the telephone
repeating it as fast as I could repeat. Come to think of it,
haven't you noticed a particularly cocky set of his head and the
corksome lightness about his heels during the past few days?"
"By Jove, he has been happy about something!" said Donald. "And
I noticed that Louise and the Mater were sort of cheery and
making a specialty of the only son and brother."
"Sure, brother, sure," said Linda. "Hurry up and scrape those
fish and let's scamper down the canyon merely for the joy of
flying with wings on our feet. You're It, young man, just It!"
Donald was sitting on a boulder. On another in front of him he
was operating on the trout. His hands were soiled; his hair was
tousled; he was fairly well decorated with fine scales. He
looked at Linda appealingly.
"Am I 'It' with you, Linda?" he asked soberly.
"Sure you are," said Linda. "You're the best friend I have."
"Will you write to me when I go to college this fall?"
"Why, you couldn't keep me from it," said Linda. "I'll have
so many things to tell you. And when your first vacation comes
we'll make it a hummer."
"I know Dad won't let me come home for my holidays except for the
midsummer ones," said Donald soberly. "It would take most of the
time there would be of the short holidays to travel back and
forth."
"You will have to go very carefully about getting a start," said
Linda, "and you should be careful to find the right kind of
friends at the very start. Christmas and Thanksgiving boxes can
always be sent on time to reach you. It won't be so long for you
as for us; and by the time you have Oka Sayye beaten to ravelings
you will have such a 'perfect habit' that you will start right in
with the beating idea. That should keep you fairly busy, because
most of the men you come up against will be beaters themselves."
"Yes, I know," said Donald. "Are you going to start me to
college with the idea that I have to keep up this beating habit?
If I were to be one of fifty or a hundred, wouldn't that be good
enough?"
"Why, sure," said Linda, "if you will be satisfied with having me
like fifty or a hundred as well as I do you."
"Oh, damn!" said Donald angrily. "Do I have to keep up this
top-crust business all my days?"
Linda looked at him with a queer smile on her lips.
"Not unless you want to, Donald," she said quietly; "not unless
you think you would rather."
Donald scraped a fish vigorously. Linda sat watching him.
Presently the tense lines around his eyes vanished. A faint red
crept up his neck and settled on his left cheek bone. A confused
grin slowly widened his naturally wide mouth.
"Then it's me for the top crust," he said conclusively.
"Then it's me for you," answered Linda in equally as
matter-of-fact tones; and rising, she gathered up the fish and
carried them to Katy while Donald knelt beside the chilly stream
and scoured his face and hands, after which Linda whipped away
the scales with an improvised brush of willow twigs.
It was such a wonderful day; it was such an unusual and delicious
feast. Plump brook trout, fresh from icy water, delicately
broiled over searing wood coals, are the finest of food. Through
the meal to the point where Donald lay on his back at the far
curve of the canyon wall, nibbling a piece of cactus candy,
everything had been perfect. Nine months would be a long time to
be gone, but Linda would wait for him, and she would write to
him.
He raised his head on his elbow and called across to her: "Say,
Linda, how often will you write to me?"
Linda answered promptly: "Every Saturday night. Saturday is our
day. I'll tell you what has happened all the week. I'll tell
you specially what a darned unprofitable day Saturday is when
you're three thousand miles away."
Bending over the canyon fireplace, her face red with heat and
exertion, Katherine O'Donovan caught up her poker and beat up the
fire until the ashes flew.
"Easy, Katy, easy," cautioned Linda. "We may want to bury those
coals and resurrect them to warm up what is left for supper."
"We'll do no such thing," said Katy promptly. "What remains goes
to feed the fish. Next time it's hungry ye are, we're goin' to
hit it straight to Lilac Valley and fill ourselves with God's own
bread and beefsteak and paraties. Don't ye think we're goin' to
be atin' these haythen messes twice in one day."
To herself she was saying: "The sooner I get you home to Pater
Morrison, missy, the better I'll be satisfied."
Once she stood erect, her hands at her belt, her elbows
widespread, and with narrowed eyes watched the youngsters. Her
lips were closed so tightly they wrinkled curiously as she turned
back to the fireplace.
"Nayther one of them fool kids has come to yet," she said to
herself, "and a mighty good thing it is that they haven't."
Linda was looking speculatively at Donald as he lay stretched on
the Indian blanket at the base of the cliff. And then, because
she was for ever busy with Nature, her eyes strayed above him up
the side of the cliff, noting the vegetation, the scarred rocks,
the sheer beauty of the canyon wall until they reached the top.
Then, for no reason at all, she sat looking steadily at a huge
boulder overhanging the edge of the cliff, and she was wondering
how many ages it had hung there and how many more it would hang,
poised almost in air, when a tiny pebble at its base loosened and
came rattling and bounding down the canyon face. Every nerve in
Linda tensed. She opened her mouth, but not a sound came. For a
breathless second she was paralyzed. Then she shrieked wildly:
"Donald, Donald, roll under the ledge! Quick, quick!"
She turned to Katy.
"Back, Katy, back!" she screamed. "That boulder is loose; it's
coming down!"
For months Donald Whiting had obeyed Linda implicitly and
instantly. He had moved with almost invisible speed at her
warning many times before. Sometimes it had been a venomous
snake, sometimes a yucca bayonet, sometimes poison vines, again
unsafe footing--in each case instant obedience had been the rule.
He did hot "question why" at her warning; he instantly did as he
was told. He, too, had noticed the falling pebble. With all the
agility of which he was capable he rolled under the narrow
projecting ledge above him. Katherine O'Donovan was a good
soldier also. She whirled and ran to the roadway. She had
barely reached it when, with a grinding crash, down came the huge
boulder, carrying bushes, smaller rocks, sand, and debris with
it. On account of its weight it fell straight, struck heavily,
and buried itself in the earth exactly on the spot upon which
Donald had been lying. Linda raised terrified eyes to the top of
the wall. For one instant a dark object peered over it and then
drew back. Without thought for herself Linda rushed to the
boulder, and kneeling, tried to see back of it.
"Donald!" she cried, "Donald, are you all right?"
"Guess I am, unless it hit one foot pretty hard. Feels fast."
"Can you get out?" she cried, beginning to tear with her hands at
the stone and the bushes where she thought his head would be.
"I'm fast; but I'm all right," he panted. "Why the devil did
that thing hang there for ages, and then come down on me today?"
"Yes, why did it?" gasped Linda. "Donald, I must leave you a
minute. I've got to know if I saw a head peer over just as that
stone came down."
"Be careful what you do!" he cried after her.
Linda sprang to her feet and rushed to the car. She caught out
the field classes and threw the strap over her head as she raced
to the far side of the fireplace where the walls were not so
sheer. Katherine O'Donovan promptly seized the axe, caught its
carrying strap lying beside it, thrust the handle through, swung
it over her own head, dropped it between her shoulders, and
ripping off her dress skirt she started up the cliff after Linda.
Linda was climbing so swiftly and so absorbedly that she reached
the top before she heard a sound behind her. Then she turned
with a white face, and her mouth dropped open as she saw Katy
three fourths of the way up the cliff. For one second she was
again stiff with terror, then, feeling she could do nothing, she
stepped back out of sight and waited a second until Katy's red
head and redder face appeared over the edge. Realizing that her
authority was of no avail, that Katy would follow her no matter
where she went or what she did, and with no time to argue, Linda
simply called to her encouragingly: "Follow where I go; take
your time; hang tight, old dear, it's dangerous!"
She started around the side of the mountain, heading almost
straight upward, traveling as swiftly and as noiselessly as
possible. Over big boulders, on precarious footing, clinging to
bushes, they made their way until they reached a place that
seemed to be sheer above them; certainly it was for hundreds of
feet below On a point of rock screened by overhanging bushes
Linda paused until Katy overtook her.
"We are about stalled," she panted. "Find a good footing and
stay where you are. I'm going to climb out on these bushes and
see if I can get a view of the mountain side."
Advancing a few yards, Linda braced herself, drew around her
glasses, and began searching the side of the mountain opposite
her and below as far as she could range with the glasses. At
last she gave up.
"Must have gone the other way," she said to Katy. "I'll crawl
back to you. We'll go after help and get Donald out. There will
be time enough to examine the cliff afterward; but I am just as
sure now as I will be when it is examined that that stone was
purposely loosened to a degree where a slight push would drop it.
As Donald says, there's no reason why it should hang there for
centuries and fall on him today. Shut your eyes, old dear, and
back up. We must go to Donald. I rather think it's on one of
his feet from what he said. Let me take one more good look."
At that minute from high on the mountain above them a shower of
sand and pebbles came rattling down. Linda gave Katy one
terrified look.
"My God!" she panted. "He's coming down right above us!"
Just how Linda recrossed the bushes and reached Katy she did not
know. She motioned for her to make her way back as they had
come. Katy planted her feet squarely upon the rock. Her lower
jaw shot out; her eyes were aflame. She stood perfectly still
with the exception of motioning Linda to crowd back under the
bushes, and again Linda realized that she had no authority; as
she had done from childhood when Katy was in earnest, Linda
obeyed her. She had barely reached the overhanging bushes,
crouched under them, and straightened herself, when a small
avalanche came showering down, and a minute later a pair of feet
were level with her head. Then screened by the bushes, she could
have reached out and touched Oka Sayye. As his feet found a
solid resting place on the ledge on which Linda and Katy stood,
and while he was still clinging to the bushes, Katherine
O'Donovan advanced upon him. He had felt that his feet were
firm, let go his hold, and turned, when he faced the infuriated
Irishwoman. She had pulled the strap from around her neck,
slipped the axe from it, and with a strong thrust she planted the
head of it against Oka Sayye's chest so hard that she almost fell
forward. The Jap plunged backward among the bushes, the roots of
which had supported Linda while she used the glasses. Then he
fell, sliding among them, snatching wildly. Linda gripped the
overhanging growth behind which she had been screened, and leaned
forward.
"He has a hold; he is coming back up, Katy!" she cried.
Katy took another step forward. She looked over the cliff down
an appalling depth of hundreds of feet. Deliberately she raised
the axe, circled it round her head and brought it down upon that
particular branch to which Oka Sayye was clinging. She cut it
through, and the axe rang upon the stone wall behind it. As she
swayed forward Linda reached out, gripped Katy and pulled her
back.
"Get him?" she asked tersely, as if she were speaking of a rat or
a rattlesnake.
Katy sank back limply against the wall. Linda slowly turned her
around, and as she faced the rock, "Squeeze tight against it shut
your eyes, and keep a stiff upper lip," she cautioned. "I'm
going to work around You; I want to be ahead of you."
She squeezed past Katy, secured the axe and hung it round her own
neck. She cautioned Katy to keep her eyes shut and follow where
she led her, then they started on their way back. Linda did not
attempt to descend the sheer wall by which they had climbed, but
making a detour she went lower, and in a very short time they
were back in the kitchen. Linda rushed to the boulder and knelt
again, but she could get no response to her questions. Evidently
Donald's foot was caught and he was unconscious from the pain.
Squeezing as close as she could, she thrust her arm under the
ledge until she could feel his head. Then she went to the other
side, and there she could see that his right foot was pinned
under the rock. She looked at Katy reassuringly, then she took
off the axe and handed it to her.
"He's alive," she said. "Can't kill a healthy youngster to have
a crushed foot. You stand guard until I take the Bear Cat and
bring help. It's not far to where I can find people."
At full speed Linda put the Cat through the stream and out of the
canyon until she reached cultivated land, where she found a man
who would gather other men and start to the rescue. She ran on
until she found a house with a telephone. There she called Judge
Whiting, telling him to bring an ambulance and a surgeon, giving
him explicit directions as to where to come, and assuring him
that Donald could not possibly be seriously hurt. She found time
to urge, also, that before starting he set in motion any
precautions he had taken for Donald's protection. She told him
where she thought what remained of Oka Sayye could be found. And
then, as naturally and as methodically as she had done all the
rest, she called Peter Morrison and told him that she was in
trouble and where he could find her.
And because Peter had many miles less distance to travel than the
others she had summoned, he arrived first. He found Linda and
Katy had burrowed under the stone until they had made an opening
into which the broken foot might sink so that the pain of the
pressure would be relieved. Before the rock, with picks and
shovels, half a dozen sympathetic farmers from ranches and
cultivated land at the mouth of the canyon were digging furiously
to make an opening undermining the boulder so that it could be
easily tipped forward. Donald was conscious and they had been
passing water to him and encouraging him with the report that his
father and a good surgeon would be there very soon. Katherine
O'Donovan had crouched at one side of the boulder, supporting the
hurt foot. She was breathing heavily and her usually red face
was a ghastly green. Linda had helped her to resume the skirt of
her dress. At the other side of the rock the girl was reaching
to where she could touch Donald's head or reassuringly grip the
hand that he could extend to her. Peter seized Linda's axe and
began hewing at the earth and rock in order to help in the speedy
removal of the huge boulder. Soon Judge Whiting, accompanied by
Doctor Fleming, the city's greatest surgeon, came caring into the
canyon and stopped on the roadway when he saw the party. The
Judge sprang from the car, leaped the stream, and started toward
them. In an effort to free his son before his arrival, all the
men braced themselves against the face of the cliff and pushed
with their combined strength. The boulder dropped forward into
the trench they had dug for it enough to allow Peter to crowd his
body between it and the cliff and lift Donald's head and
shoulders. Linda instantly ran around the boulder, pushed
her way in, and carefully lifting Donald's feet, she managed to
work the lithe slenderness of her body through the opening, so
that they carried Donald out and laid him down in the open. He
was considerably dazed and shaken, cruelly hurt, but proved
himself a game youngster of the right mettle. He raised himself
to a sitting posture, managing a rather stiff-lipped smile for
his father and Linda. The surgeon instantly began cutting to
reach the hurt foot, while Peter Morrison supported the boy's
head and shoulders on one side, his father on the other.
An exclamation of dismay broke from the surgeon's lips. He
looked at Judge Whiting and nodded slightly. The men immediately
picked up Donald and carried him to the ambulance. Katherine
O'Donovan sat down suddenly and buried her face in the skirt of
her dress. Linda laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"Don't, Katy," she said. "Keep up your nerve; you're all right,
old dear. Donald's fine. That doesn't mean anything except that
his foot is broken, so he won't be able, and it won't be
necessary for him, to endure the pain of setting it in a cast
without an anesthetic; and Doctor Fleming can work much better
where he has every convenience. It's all right."
The surgeon climbed into the ambulance and they started on an
emergency run to the hospital. As the car turned and swept down
the canyon, for no reason that she could have explained, Linda
began to shake until her teeth clicked. Peter Morrison sprang
back across the brook, and running to her side, he put his arm
around her and with one hand he pressed her head against his
shoulder, covering her face.
"Steady, Linda," he said quietly, "steady. You know that he is
all right. It will only be a question of a short confinement."
Linda made a brave effort to control herself. She leaned against
Peter and held out both her hands.
"I'm all right," she chattered. "Give me a minute."
Judge Whiting came to them.
"I am getting away immediately," he said. "I must reach Louise
and Mother before they get word of this. Doctor Fleming will
take care of Donald all right. What happened, Linda? Can you
tell me?"
Linda opened her lips and tried to speak, but she was too
breathless, too full of excitement, to be coherent. To her
amazement Katherine O'Donovan scrambled to her feet, lifted her
head and faced the Judge. She pointed to the fireplace.
"I was right there, busy with me cookie' utensils," she said l
Miss Linda was a-sittin, on that exact spot, they jist havin 1
finished atin' some of her haythen messes; and the lad was lyin,
square where the boulder struck, on the Indian blanket, atin' a
pace of cactus candy. And jist one pebble came rattlin' down,
but Miss Linda happened to be lookin', and she scramed to the b'y
to be rollin' under where ye found him; so he gave a flop or two,
and it's well that he took his orders without waitin' to ask the
raison for them, for if he had, at the prisint minute he would be
about as thick as a shate of writing paper. The thing dropped
clear and straight and drove itself into the earth and stone
below it, as ye see."
Katherine O'Donovan paused.
"Yes," said the Judge. "Anything else?"
"Miss Linda got to him and she made sure he had brathin' space
and he wasn't hurt bad, and then she told him he had got to stand
it, because, sittin' where she did, she faced the cliff and she
thought she had seen someone. She took the telescope and started
climbin', and I took the axe and I started climbin' after her."
Katy broke down and emitted a weird Irish howl. Linda instantly
braced herself, threw her arms around Katy, and drew her head to
her shoulder. She looked at Judge Whiting and began to talk
"I can show you where she followed me, straight up the face of
the canyon, almost," she said. "And she never had tried to climb
a canyon side for a yard, either, but she came up and over after
me, like a cat. And up there on a small ledge Oka Sayye came
down directly above us. I couldn't be mistaken. I saw him
plainly. I know him by sight as well as I do any of you. We
heard the stones coming down before him, and we knew someone was
going to be on us who was desperate enough to kill. When he
touched our level and turned to follow the ledge we were on, I
pushed him over."
Katy shook off Linda's protecting arm and straightened suddenly.
"Why, ye domned little fool, ye!" she screamed. "Ye never told a
lie before in all your days! Judge Whiting, I had the axe round
me neck by the climbin' strap, and I got it in me fingers when we
heard the crature comin', and against his chist I set it, and I
gave him a shove that sint him over. Like a cat he was
a-clingin' and climbin', and when I saw him comin' up on us with
that awful face of his, I jist swung the axe like I do when I'm
rejoocin' a pace of eucalyptus to fireplace size, and whack! I
took the branch supportin' him, and a dome' good axe I spoiled
din' it."
Katy folded her arms, lifted her chin higher than it ever had
been before, and glared defiance at the Judge.
"Now go on," she said, "and decide what ye'll do to me for it."
The Judge reached over and took both Katherine O'Donovan's hands
in a firm grip.
"You brave woman!" he said. "If it lay in my power, I would give
you the Carnegie Medal. In any event I will see that you have a
good bungalow with plenty of shamrock on each side of your front
path, and a fair income to keep you comfortable when the
rheumatic days are upon you."
"I am no over-feeder," said Katy proudly. "I'm daily exercisin'
me muscles enough to kape them young. The rheumatism I'll not
have. And nayther will I have the house nor the income. I've
saved me money; I've an income of me own."
"And as for the bungalow," interrupted Linda, "Katherine, as I
have mentioned frequently before is my father, and my mother, and
my whole family, and her front door is mine."
"Sure," said Katy proudly. "When these two fine people before
you set up their hearthstone, a-swapin' it I'll be, and carin'
for their youngsters; but, Judge, I would like a bit of the
shamrock. Ye might be sendin' me a start of that, if it would
plase Your Honor."
Judge Whiting looked intently at Katherine O'Donovan. And then,
as if they had been on the witness stand, he looked searchingly
at Linda. But Linda was too perturbed, too accustomed to Katy's
extravagant nonsense even to notice the purport of what she had
said. Then the Judge turned his attention to Peter Morrison and
realized that at least one of the parties to Katherine's proposed
hearthstone had understood and heartily endorsed her proposal.
"I will have to be going. The boy and his mother will need me,"
he said. "I will see all of you later."
Then he sprang across the brook and sent his car roaring down the
canyon after the ambulance.
Once more Katy sank to the ground. Linda looked at her as she
buried her face and began to wail.
"Peter," she said quietly, "hunt our belongings and pack them in
the Bear Cat the best you can. Excuse us for a few minutes. We
must act this out of our systems."
Gravely she sat down beside Katy, laid her head on her shoulder,
and began to cry very nearly as energetically as Katy herself.
And that was the one thing which was most effective in restoring
Katy's nerves. Tears were such an unaccustomed thing with Linda
that Katy controlled herself speedily so that she might be better
able to serve the girl. In a few minutes Katy had reduced her
emotions to a dry sniffle. She lifted her head, groped for her
pocket, and being unable to find it for the very good reason that
she was sitting upon it, she used her gingham hem as a
handkerchief. Once she had risen to the physical effort of
wiping her eyes, she regained calmness rapidly. The last time
she applied the hem she looked at Peter, but addressed the
Almighty in resigned tones: "There, Lord, I guess that will do."
In a few minutes she was searching the kitchen, making sure that
no knives, spoons, or cooking utensils were lost. Missing her
support, Linda sat erect and endeavored to follow Katy's example.
Her eyes met Peter's and when she saw that his shoulders were
shaking, a dry, hysterical laugh possessed her.
"Yes, Katy," she panted, "that WILL do, and remember the tears we
are shedding are over Donald's broken foot, and because this may
interfere with his work, though I don't think it will for long."
"When I cry," said Katy tersely, "I cry because I feel like it.
I wasn't wapin' over the snake that'd plan a death like that for
anyone"--Katy waved toward the boulder--"and nayther was I
wastin' me tears over the fut of a kid bein' jommed up a trifle."
"Well, then, Katy," asked Linda tremulously, "why were you
crying?"
"Well, there's times," said Katy judicially, "when me spirits
tell me I would be the better for lettin' off a wee bit of stame,
and one of them times havin' arrived, I jist bowed me head to it,
as is in accordance with the makings of me. Far be it from me to
be flyin' in the face of Providence and sayin' I won't, when all
me interior disposhion says to me: 'Ye will!'"
"And now, Linda," said Peter, "can you tell us why you were
crying?"
"Why, I think," said Linda, "that Katy has explained sufficiently
for both of us. It was merely time for us to howl after such
fearful nerve strain, so we howled."
"Well, that's all right," said Peter. "Now I'll tell you
something. If you had gone away in that ambulance to an
anesthetic and an operation, no wildcat that ever indulged in a
hunger hunt through this canyon could have put up a howl equal to
the one that I would have sent up."
"Peter," said Linda, "there is nothing funny about this; it's no
tame for jest. But do men have nerves? Would you really?"
"Of course I would," said Peter.
"No, you wouldn't," contradicted Linda. "You just say that
because you want to comfort us for having broken down, instead of
trying to tease us as most men would."
"He would, too!" said Katy, starting to the Bear Cat with a load
of utensils. "Now come on; let's go home and be gettin' craned
up and ready for what's goin' to happen to us. Will they be
jailin' us, belike, Miss Linda?"
Linda looked at Peter questioningly.
"No," he said quietly. "It is very probable that the matter
never will be mentioned to you again, unless Judge Whiting gets
hold of some clue that he wishes to use as an argument against
matured Japs being admitted in the same high-school classes with
our clean, decent, young Americans. They stopped that in the
grades several years ago, I am told."
Before they could start back to Lilac Valley a car stopped in the
canyon and a couple of men introducing themselves as having come
from Judge Whiting interviewed Katy and Linda exhaustively. Then
Linda pointed out to them an easier but much longer route by
which they might reach the top of the canyon to examine the spot
from which the boulder had fallen. She showed them where she and
Katy had ascended, and told them where they would be likely to
find Oka Sayye.
When it came to a question of really starting, Linda looked with
appealing eyes at Peter.
"Peter," she said, "could we fix it any way so you could drive
Katy and me home? For the first time since I have begun driving
this spring I don't feel equal to keeping the road."
"Of course," said Peter. "I'll take your car to the nearest
farmhouse and leave it, then I'll take you and Katy in my car."
Late that evening Judge Whiting came to Lilac Valley with his
wife and daughter to tell Linda that the top of the cliff gave
every evidence of the stone having been loosened previously, so
that a slight impetus would send it crashing down at the time
when Donald lay in his accustomed place directly in the line of
its fall. His detectives had found the location of the encounter
and they had gone to the bottom of the cliff, a thousand feet
below, but they had not been able to find any trace of Oka Sayye.
Somewhere in waiting there had been confederates who had removed
what remained of him. On the way home Mrs. Whiting said to her
husband: "Judge, are you very sure that what the cook said to
you this afternoon about Miss Strong and Mr. Morrison is true?"
"I am only sure of its truth so far as he is concerned," replied
the Judge. "What he thought about Linda was evident. I am very
sorry. She is a mighty fine girl and I think Donald is very much
interested in her."
"Yes, I think so, too," said Donald's mother. "Interested; but
he has not even a case of first love. He is interested for the
same reason you would be or I would be, because she is
intellectually so stimulating. And you have to take into
consideration the fact that in two or three years more she will
be ready for marriage and a home of her own, and Donald will
still be in school with his worldly experience and his business
education not yet begun. The best thing that can happen to
Donald is just to let his infatuation for her die a natural
death, with the quiet assistance of his family."
The Judge's face reddened slightly.
"Well, I would like mighty well to have her in the family," he
said. "She's a corking fine girl. She would make a fine mother
of fine men. I haven't a doubt but that with the power of his
personality and the power of his pen and the lure of propinquity,
Peter Morrison will win her, but I hate it. It's the best chance
the boy ever will have."
And then Louise spoke up softly.
"Donald hasn't any chance, Dad," she said quietly, "and he never
did have. I have met Peter Morrison myself and I would be only
too glad if I thought he was devoted to me. I'll grant that
Linda Strong is a fine girl, but when she wakes up to the worth
of Peter Morrison and to a realization of what other women would
be glad to be to him, she will merely reach out and lay
possessive hands upon what already belongs to her."
It was a curious thing that such occurrences as the death of Oka
Sayye and the injury to Donald could take place and no one know
about them. Yet the papers were silent on the subject and so
were the courts. Linda and Katy were fully protected. The
confederates of Oka Sayye for reasons of their own preferred to
keep very quiet.
By Monday Donald, with his foot in a plaster cast, was on a side
veranda of his home with a table beside him strewn with books and
papers. An agreement had been made that his professors should
call and hear his recitations for a few days until by the aid of
a crutch and a cane he could resume his place in school. Linda
went to visit him exactly as she would have gone to see Marian
in like circumstances. She succeeded in making all of the
Whiting family her very devoted friends.
One evening, after he had been hobbling about for over a week,
Linda and Peter called to spend the evening, and a very gay and
enjoyable evening it was. And yet when it was over and they had
gone away together Donald appeared worried and deeply thoughtful.
When his mother came to his room to see if the foot was unduly
painful or there was anything she could do to make him more
comfortable, he looked at her belligerently.
"Mother," he said, "I don't like Peter Morrison being so much
with my girl."
Mrs. Whiting stood very still. She thought very fast. Should
she postpone it or should she let the boy take all of his hurts
together? Her heart ached for him and yet she felt that she knew
what life had in store for him concerning Linda. So she sat on
the edge of the bed and began to talk quietly, plainly,
reasonably. She tried to explain nature and human nature and
what she thought the laws of probability were in the case.
Donald lay silent. He said nothing until she had finished all
she had to say, and then he announced triumphantly: "You're all
wrong. That is what would happen if Linda were a girl like any
of the other girls in her class, or like Louise. But she has
promised that she would write to me every Saturday night and she
has said that she thinks more of me than of any of the other
boys."
"Donald dear," said Mrs. Whiting, "you're not 'in love' with
Linda yourself, and neither is she with you. By the time you are
ready to marry and settle down in life, Linda in all probability
will be married and be the mother of two or three babies."
"Yes, like fun she will," said Donald roughly.
"Have you asked her whether she loves you?" inquired Mrs.
Whiting.
"Oh, that 'love' business," said Donald, "it makes me tired!
Linda and I never did any mushing around. We had things of some
importance to talk about and to do."
A bit of pain in Mrs. Whiting's heart eased. It was difficult to
keep her lips quiet and even.
"You haven't asked her to marry you, then?" she said soberly.
"Oh good Lord," cried Donald, "'marry!' How could I marry anyone
when I haven't even graduated from high school and with college
and all that to come?"
"That is what I have been trying to tell you," said his mother
evenly. "I don't believe you have been thinking about marriage
and I am absolutely certain that Linda has not, but she is going
to be made to think about it long before you will be in such
financial position that you dare. That is the reason I am
suggesting that you think about these things seriously and
question yourself as to whether you would be doing the fair thing
by Linda if you tried to tie her up in an arrangement that would
ask her to wait six or eight years yet before you would be
ready."
"Well, I can get around faster than that," said Donald
belligerently.
"Of course you can," agreed his mother. "I made that estimate
fully a year too long. But even in seven years Linda could do an
awful lot of waiting; and there are some very wonderful girls
that will be coming up six or seven years from now here at home.
You know that hereafter all the girls in the world are going to
be very much more Linda's kind of girls than they have been
heretofore. The girls who have lived through the war and who
have been intimate with its sorrow and its suffering and its
terrible results to humanity, are not going to be such heedless,
thoughtless, not nearly such selfish, girls as the world has
known in the decade just past. And there is going to be more
outdoor life, more nature study. There are going to be stronger
bodies, better food, better-cared-for young people; and every
year educational advantages are going to be greater. If you can
bring yourself to think about giving up the idea of there ever
existing any extremely personal thing between you and Linda, I am
very sure I could guarantee to introduce you to a girl who would
be quite her counterpart, and undoubtedly we could meet one who
would be handsomer."
Donald punched his pillow viciously.
"That's nice talk," he said, "and it may be true talk. But in
the first place I wish that Peter Morrison would let my girl
alone, and in the second place I don't care if there are a
thousand just as nice girls or even better-looking girls than
Linda, though any girl would be going some if she were nicer and
better looking than Linda. But I am telling you that when my
foot gets better I am going to Lilac Valley and tell him where to
head in, and I'll punch his head if he doesn't do it promptly."
"Of course you will," said his mother reassuringly; "and I'll go
with you and we'll see to it that he attends strictly to his own
affairs."
Donald burst out laughing, exactly as his mother in her heart had
hoped that he would.
"Yes, I've got a hand-painted picture of myself starting to Lilac
Valley to fight a man who is butting in with my girl, and taking
my mother along to help me beat him up," he said.
Mrs. Whiting put her arms around her boy, kissed him tenderly,
and smoothed his hair, and then turned out the lights and slipped
from the room. But in the clear moonlight as she closed the door
she could see that a boyish grin was twisting his lips, and she
went down to tell the Judge that he need not worry. If his boy
were irreparably hurt anywhere, it was in his foot.
CHAPTER XXXII. How the Wasp Built Her Nest
The following weeks were very happy for Linda. When the cast was
removed from Donald's foot and it was found that a year or two of
care would put him even on the athletic fields and the dancing
floor again, she was greatly relieved.
She lacked words in which to express her joy that Marian was
rapidly coming into happiness. She was so very busy with her
school work, with doing all she could to help Donald with his,
with her "Jane Meredith" articles, with hunting and working out
material for her book, that she never had many minutes at a time
for introspection. When she did have a few she sometimes
pondered deeply as to whether Marian had been altogether sincere
in the last letter she had written her in their correspondence,
but she was so delighted in the outcome that if she did at times
have the same doubt in a fleeting form that had not been in the
least fleeting with Peter Morrison, she dismissed it as rapidly
as possible. When things were so very good as they were at that
time, why try to improve them?
One evening as she came from school, thinking that she would take
Katy for a short run in the Bear Cat before dinner, she noticed a
red head prominent in the front yard as she neared home. When
she turned in at the front walk and crossed the lawn she would
have been willing to wager quite a sum that Katy had been crying.
"Why, old dear," said Linda, putting her arms around her, "if
anything has gone wrong with you I will certainly take to the
warpath, instanter. I can't even imagine what could be troubling
you." Linda lowered her voice. "Nothing has come up about Oka
Sayye?"
Katy shook her head.
"I thought not," said Linda. "Judge Whiting promised me that
what use he made of that should be man's business and exploited
wholly for the sake of California and her people. He said we
shouldn't be involved. I haven't been worried about it even,
although I am willing to go upon the stand and tell the whole
story if it will be any help toward putting right what is at
present a great wrong to California."
"Yes, so would I," said Katy. "I'm not worryin' meself about the
little baste any more than I would if it had been a mad dog
foaming up that cliff at ye."
"Then what is it?" asked Linda. "Tell me this minute."
"I dunno what in the world you're going to think," said Katy "I
dunno what in the world you're going to do."
Her face was so distressed that Linda's nimble brain flew to a
conclusion. She tightened her arm across Katy's shoulder.
"By Jove, Katy!" she said breathlessly. "Is Eileen in the
house?"
Katy nodded.
"Has she been to see John and made things right with him?"
Katy nodded again.
"He's in there with her waitin' for ye," she said.
It was a stunned Linda who slowly dropped her arm, stood erect,
and lifted her head very high. She thought intently.
"You don't mean to tell me," she said, "that you have been CRYING
over her?"
Katy held out both hands.
"Linda," she said, "she always was such a pretty thing, and her
ma didn't raise her to have the sense of a peewee. If your pa
had been let take her outdoors and grow her in the sun and the
air, she would have been bigger and broader, an' there would have
been the truth of God's sunshine an' the glory of His rain about
her. Ye know, Linda, that she didn't ever have a common decent
chance. It was curls that couldn't be shook out and a nose that
dassen't be sunburned and shoes that mustn't be scuffed and a
dress that shouldn't be mussed, from the day she was born. Ye
couldn't jist honest say she had ever had a FAIR chance, now
could ye?"
"No," said Linda conclusively' "no, Katherine O'Donovan, you
could not. But what are we up against? Does she want to come
back? Does she want to stay here again?"
"I think she would like to," said Katy. "You go in and see her
for yourself, lambie, before ye come to any decision."
"You don't mean," said Linda in a marveling tone, "that she has
been homesick, that she has come back to us because she would
like to be with us again?"
"You go and see her for yourself; and if you don't say she is the
worst beat out and the tiredest mortal that ye have ever seen
you'll be surprisin' me. My God, Linda, they ain't nothin' in
bein' rich if it can do to a girl what has been done to Eileen!"
"Oh, well," said Linda impatiently, "don't condemn all money
because Eileen has not found happiness with it. The trouble has
been that Eileen's only chance to be rich came to her through the
wrong kind of people."
"Well, will ye jist tell me, then," said Katy, "how it happened
that Eileen's ma was a sister to that great beef of a man, which
same is hard on self-rayspectin' beef; pork would come nearer."
"Yes," said Linda, "I'll tell you. Eileen's mother had a big
streak of the same coarseness and the same vulgarity in HER
nature, or she could not have reared Eileen as she did. She
probably had been sent to school and had better advantages than
the boy through a designing mother of her own. Her first husband
must have been a man who greatly refined and educated her. We
can't ever get away from the fact that Daddy believed in her and
loved her."
"Yes," said Katy, "but he was a fooled man. She wasn't what we
thought she was. Many's the time I've stood injustice about the
accounts and household management because I wouldn't be wakin'
him up to what he was bound to for life."
"That doesn't help us," said Linda. "I must go in and face
them."
She handed her books to Katy, and went into the living room She
concentrated on John Gilman first, and a wee qualm of disgust
crept through her soul when she saw that after weeks of suffering
he was once more ready to devote himself to Eileen. Linda
marveled at the power a woman could hold over a man that would
force him to compromise with his intellect, his education and
environment. Then she turned her attention to Eileen, and the
shock she received was informing. She studied her an instant
incredulously, then she went to her and held out her hand.
"How do you do?" she said as cordially as was possible to
her."This is unexpected."
Her mind was working rapidly, yet she could not recall ever
having seen a woman quite so beautiful as Eileen. She was very
certain that the color on her cheeks was ebbing and rising with
excitement; it was no longer so deep as to be stationary. She
was very certain that her eyes had not been darkened as to lids
or waxed as to lashes. Her hair was beautifully dressed in
sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work upon it. Her
dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There was no
simper on her lips, nothing superficial. She was only a tired,
homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy
had cried over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own
heart. She put both arms protectingly around Eileen.
"Why, you poor little thing," she said wonderingly, "was it so
damn' bad as all that?"
Eileen stood straight. She held herself rigidly. She merelY
nodded. Then after a second she said: "Worse than anything you
could imagine, Linda. Being rich with people who have grown rich
by accident is a dreadful experience."
"So I have always imagined," said Linda. And then in her usual
downright way she asked: "Why did you come, Eileen? Is there
anything you wanted of me?"
Eileen hesitated. It was not in Linda's heart to be mean.
"Homesick, little sister?" she asked lightly "Do you want to come
here while you're getting ready to make a home for John? Is that
it?"
Then Eileen swayed forward suddenly, buried her face in Linda's
breast, and for the first time in her life Linda saw and heard
her cry, not from selfishness, not from anger, not from greed,
but as an ordinary human being cries when the heart is so full
that nature relieves itself with tears. Linda closed her arms
around her and smiled over her head at John Gilman.
"Finish all of it before you stop," she advised. "It's all
right. You come straight home. You didn't leave me any word,
and I didn't know what to do with your things, but I couldn't
feel that you would want to give up such beautiful things that
you had so enjoyed. We had planned for Marian to spend her
summer vacation here so I put her things in your suite and I had
moved mine into the guest room, but I have had my room done over
and the guest room things are in there, and every scrap of yours
is carefully put away. If that will do, you are perfectly
welcome to it."
Eileen wiped her eyes.
"Anything," she sobbed. "I'd rather have Katy's room than be
shamed and humiliated and hurt any further. Linda, I would
almost like you to know my Aunt Callie, because you will never
understand about her if you don't. Her favorite pastime was to
tell everyone we met how much the things I wore cost her."
Linda released Eileen with a slight shake.
"Cheer up !" she said. "We'll all have a gorgeous time together.
I haven't the slightest ambition to know more than that about
your Aunt Callie. If my brain really had been acting properly I
would never have dismantled your room. I would have known that
you could not endure her, and that you would come home just as
you should. It's all right, John, make yourself comfortable. I
don't know what Katy has for dinner but she can always find
enough for an extra couple. Come Eileen, I'll help you to
settle. Where is your luggage?"
"I brought back, Linda, just what I have on," said Eileen. "I
will begin again where I left off. I realize that I am not
entitled to anything further from the Strong estate, but Uncle
was so unhappy and John says it's all right--really I am the only
blood heir to all they have; I might as well take a comfortable
allowance from it. I am to go to see them a few days of every
month. I can endure that when I know I have John and you to come
back to."
When Eileen had been installed in Linda's old room Linda went
down to the kitchen, shut the door behind her, and leaning
against it, laid her hand over her mouth to suppress a low laugh.
"Katy," she said, "I've been and gone and done it; I have put the
perfect lady in my old room. That will be a test of her
sincerity--even dainty and pretty as it is since it's been done
over. If she is sincere enough to spend the summer getting ready
to marry John Gilman--why that is all right, old girl. We can
stand it, can't we?"
"Yes," said Katy, "it's one of them infernal nuisances but we can
stand it. I'm thinkin', from the looks of John Gilman and his
manner of spakin', that it ain't goin' to be but a very short
time that he'll be waitin'."
"Katy," said Linda, "isn't this the most entertaining world?
Doesn't it produce the most lightning-like changes, and don't the
most unexpected things happen? Sort of dazes me. I had planned
to take a little run with you and the Cat. Since we are
having--no, I mustn't say guests--since John and Eileen have come
home, I'll have to give up that plan until after dinner, and then
we'll go and take counsel with our souls and see if we can figure
out how we are going to solve this equation; and if you don t
know what an equation is, old dear heart, it's me with a war-club
and you with a shillalah and Eileen between us, and be 'damned'
to us if we can't make an average, ordinary, decent human being
out of her. Pin an apron on her in the morning, Katy, and hand
her a dust cloth and tell her to industrialize. We will help her
with her trousseau, but she SHALL help us with the work."
"Ye know, lambie," whispered Katy suddenly, "this is a burnin'
shame. The one thing I DIDN'T think about is that book of yours.
What about it?"
"I scarcely know," said Linda; "it's difficult to say. Of course
we can't carry out the plans we had made to work here, exactly as
we had intended, with Eileen in the house preparing to be
married. But she tells me that her uncle has made her a generous
allowance, so probably it's environment and love she is needing
much more than help. It is barely possible, Katy, that after I
have watched her a few days, if I decide she is in genuine,
sincere, heart-whole earnest, I might introduce her and John to
my friend, 'Jane.' It is probable that if I did, Eileen would not
expect me to help her, and at the same time she wouldn't feel
that I was acting indifferently because I did not. We'll wait
awhile, Katy, and see whether we skid before we put on the
chains."
"What about Marian?" inquired Katy.
"I don't know," said Linda thoughtfully. "If Marian is big
enough to come here and spend the summer under the same roof with
Eileen and John Gilman, and have a really restful, enjoyable time
out of it, she is bigger than I am. Come up to the garret; I
think Eileen has brought no more with her than she took away.
We'll bring her trunk down, put it in her room and lay the keys
on top. Don't begin by treating her as a visitor; treat her as
if she were truly my sister. Tell her what you want and how you
want it, exactly as you tell me and as I tell you. If you see
even a suspicion of any of the former objectionable tendencies
popping up, let's check them quick and hard, Katy."
For a week Linda watched Eileen closely. At the end of that time
she was sincere in her conviction that Eileen had been severely
chastened. When she came in contact with Peter Morrison or any
other man they met she was not immediately artificial. She had
learned to be as natural with men as with other women. There
were no pretty postures, no softened vocal modulations, no
childish nonsense on subjects upon which the average child of
these days displays the knowledge of the past-generation
grandmother. When they visited Peter Morrison's house it was
easy to see that Eileen was interested, more interested than any
of them ever before had seen her in any subject outside of
clothing and jewels. Her conduct in the Strong home had been
irreproachable. She had cared for her own room, quietly
undertaken the duties of dusting and arranging the rooms and
cutting and bringing in flowers. She had gone to the kitchen and
wiped dishes and asked to be taught how to cook things of which
John was particularly fond. She had been reasonable in the
amount of time she had spent on her shopping, and had repeatedly
gone to Linda and shown interest in her concerns. The result was
that Linda at once displayed the same interest in anything
pertaining to Eileen.
One afternoon Linda came home unusually early. She called for
Eileen, told her to tie on her sunshade and be ready for a short
ride. Almost immediately she brought around the Bear Cat and
when they were seated side by side headed it toward the canyon.
She stopped at the usual resting place, and together she and
Eileen walked down the light-dappled road bed. She pointed out
things to Eileen, telling her what they were, to what uses they
could be put, while at the same time narrowly watching her. To
her amazement she found that Eileen was interested, that she was
noticing things for herself, asking what they were. She wanted
to know the names of the singing birds. When a big bird trailed
a waving shadow in front of her Linda explained how she might
distinguish an eagle from a hawk, a hawk from a vulture, a sea
bird from those of the land. When they reached the bridge Linda
climbed down the embankment to gather cress. She was moved to
protest when Eileen followed and without saying a word began to
assist her, but she restrained herself, for it suddenly occurred
to her that it would be an excellent thing for Eileen to think
more of what she was doing and why she was doing it than about
whether she would wet her feet or muddy her fingers. So the
protest became an explanation that it was rather late for cress:
the leaves toughened when it bloomed and were too peppery. The
only way it could be used agreeably was to work along the edges
and select the small tender shoots that had not yet matured to
the flowering point. When they had an armload they went back to
the car, and without any explanation Linda drove into Los Angeles
and stopped at the residence of Judge Whiting, not telling Eileen
where she was.
"Friends of mine," said Linda lightly as she stepped from the
car. "Fond of cress salad with their dinner. They prepare it
after the Jane Meredith recipe to which you called my attention,
in Everybody's Home last winter. Come along with me."
Eileen stepped from the car and followed. Linda led the way
round the sidewalk to where her quick ear had located voices on
the side lawn. She stopped at the kitchen door, handed in the
cress, exchanged a few laughing words with the cook, and then
presented herself at the door of the summerhouse. Inside, his
books and papers spread over a worktable, sat Donald Whiting.
One side of him his mother was busy darning his socks; on the
other his sister Louise was working with embroidery silk and
small squares of gaily colored linen. Linda entered with exactly
the same self-possession that characterized her at home. She
shook hands with Mrs. Whiting, Mary Louise, and Donald, and then
she said quietly: "Eileen and I were gathering cress and we
stopped to leave you some for your dinner." With this
explanation she introduced Eileen to Mrs. Whiting. Mary Louise
immediately sprang up and recalled their meeting at Riverside.
Donald remembered a meeting he did not mention. It was only a
few minutes until Linda was seated beside Donald, interesting
herself in his lessons. Eileen begged to be shown the pretty
handkerchiefs that Mary Louise was making. An hour later Linda
refused an invitation to dinner because Katy would be expecting
them. When she arose to go, Eileen was carrying a small square
of blue-green linen. Carefully pinned to it was a patch of white
with a spray of delicate flowers outlined upon it, and a skein of
pink silk thread. She had been initiated into the thrillingly
absorbing feminine accomplishment of making sport handkerchiefs.
When they left Eileen was included naturally, casually,
spontaneously, in their invitation to Linda to run in any time
she would. Mary Louise had said she would ride out with Donald
in few days and see how the handkerchiefs were coming on, and
more instruction and different stitches and patterns were
necessary, she would love to teach them. So Linda realized that
Mary Louise had been told about the trousseau. She knew, even
lacking as she was in feminine sophistication, that there were
two open roads to the heart of a woman. One is a wedding and the
other is a baby. The lure of either is irresistible.
As the Bear Cat glided back to Lilac Valley, Eileen sat silent.
For ten years she had coveted the entree to the Whiting home
perhaps more than any other in the city. Merely by being simple
and natural, by living her life as life presented itself each
day, Linda with no effort whatever had made possible to Eileen
the thing she so deeply craved. Eileen was learning a new lesson
each day--some days many of them--but none was more amazing more
simple, or struck deeper into her awakened consciousness. As she
gazed with far-seeing eye on the blue walls of the valley Eileen
was taking a mental inventory of her former self. One by one she
was arraigning all the old tricks she had used in her trade of
getting on in the world. One by one she was discarding them in
favor of honesty, unaffectedness, and wholesome enjoyment.
Because of these things Linda came home the next afternoon and
left a bundle on Eileen's bed before she made her way to her own
room to busy herself with a head piece for Peter's latest
article. She had taken down the wasp picture and while she had
not destroyed it she had turned the key of a very substantial
lock upon it. She was hard at work when she heard steps on the
stairs. When Eileen entered, Linda smiled quizzically and then
broke into an unaffected ejaculation.
"Ripping!" she cried. "Why, Eileen, you're perfectly topping."
Eileen's face flamed with delight. She was a challenging little
figure. None of them was accustomed to her when she represented
anything more substantial than curls and ruffles.
Linda reached for the telephone, called Gilman, and asked him if
he could go to the beach for supper that evening. He immediately
replied that he would. Then she called Peter Morrison and asked
him the same question and when Peter answered affirmatively she
told him to bring his car. Then she hastily put on her own field
clothes and ran to the kitchen to fill the lunch box. To Katy's
delight Linda told her there would be room for her and that she
needed her.
It was evening and the sun was moving slowly toward the horizon
when they stopped the cars and went down on the white sands of
Santa Monica Bay. Eileen had been complimented until she was in
a glow of delight. She did not notice that in piling things out
of the car for their beach supper Linda had handed her a shovel
and the blackened iron legs of a broiler. Everyone was loaded
promiscuously as they took up their march down to as near the
water's edge as the sands were dry. Peter and John gathered
driftwood. Linda improvised two cooking places, one behind a
rock for herself, the other under the little outdoor stove for
Katy. Eileen was instructed as to how to set up the beach table,
spread the blankets beside it, and place the food upon it. While
Katy made coffee and toasted biscuit Linda was busy introducing
her party to brigand beefsteak upon four long steel skewers. The
day had been warm. The light salt breeze from the sea was like a
benediction. Friendly gulls gathered on the white sands around
them. Cunning little sea chickens worked in accord with the
tide: when the waves advanced they rose above them on wing; when
they retreated they scampered over the wet sand, hunting any
small particles of food that might have been carried in. Out
over the water big brown pelicans went slowly fanning homeward;
and white sea swallows drew wonderful pictures on the blue night
sky with the tips of their wings. For a few minutes at the
reddest point of its setting the sun painted a marvelous picture
in a bank of white clouds. These piled up like a great rosy
castle, and down the sky roadway before it came a long procession
of armored knights, red in the sun glow and riding huge red
horses. Then the colors mixed and faded and a long red bridge
for a short time spanned the water, ending at their feet. The
gulls hunted the last scrap thrown them and went home. The
swallows sought their high cliffs. The insidiously alluring
perfume of sand verbena rose like altar incense around them.
Gilman spread a blanket, piled the beach fire higher, and sitting
beside Eileen, he drew her head to his shoulder and put his arm
around her. Possibly he could have been happier in a careless
way if he had never suffered. It is very probable that the
poignant depth of exquisite happiness he felt in that hour never
would have come to him had he not lost Eileen and found her again
so much more worth loving. Linda wandered down the beach until
she reached the lighthouse rocks. She climbed on a high one and
sat watching the sea as it sprayed just below. Peter Morrison
followed her.
"May I come up?" he asked.
"Surely," said Linda, "this belongs to the Lord; it isn't mine."
So Peter climbed up and sat beside her.
"How did the landscape appeal to you when you left the campfire?"
inquired Linda.
"I should think the night cry might very well be Eight o'clock
and all's well," answered Peter.
"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world?'" Linda put it
in the form of a question.
"It seems to be for John and Eileen," said Peter.
"It is for a number of people," said Linda. "I had a letter from
Marian today. I had written her to ask if she would come to us
for the summer, in spite of the change in our plans; but Mr. Snow
has made some plans of his own. He is a very astute individual.
He wanted Marian to marry him at once and she would not, so he
took her for a short visit to see his daughter at her
grandmother's home in the northern part of the state. Marian
fell deeply in love with his little girl, and of course those
people found Marian charming, just as right-minded people would
find her. When she saw how the little girl missed her father and
how difficult it was for him to leave her, and when she saw how
she would be loved and appreciated in that fine family, she
changed her mind. Peter, we are going to be invited to San
Francisco to see them married very shortly. Are you glad or
sorry?"
"I am very glad," said Peter heartily. "I make no concealment of
my admiration for Miss Thorne but I am very glad indeed that it
is not her head that is to complete the decoration when you start
the iris marching down my creek banks."
"Well, that's all right," said Linda. "Of course you should have
something to say about whose head finished that picture. I can't
contract to do more than set the iris. The thing about this I
dread is that Marian and Eugene are going to live in San
Francisco, and I did so want her to make her home in Lilac
Valley."
"That's too bad," said Peter sympathetically. "I know how you
appreciate her, how deeply you love her. Do you think the valley
will ever be right for you without her, Linda?"
"It will have to be," said Linda. "I've had to go on without
Father, you know. If greater happiness seems to be in store for
Marian in San Francisco, all I can do is to efface myself and say
'Amen.' When the world is all right for Marian, it is about as
near all right as it can be for me. And did you ever see much
more sincerely and clearly contented people than John and Eileen
are at the present minute?"
Peter looked at Linda whimsically. He lowered his voice as if a
sea urchin might hear and tattle.
"What did you do about the wasp, Linda?" he whispered.
"I delicately erased the stinger, fluffed up a ruffle, and put
the sketch under lock and key. I should have started a fire with
it, but couldn't quite bring myself to let it go, yet."
"Is she going to hold out?" asked Peter.
"She'll hold out or get her neck wrung," said Linda. "I truly
think she has been redeemed. She has been born again. She has a
new heart and a new soul and a new impulse and a right conception
of life. Why, Peter, she has even got a new body. Her face is
not the same."
"She is much handsomer," said Peter.
"Isn't she?" cried Linda enthusiastically. "And doesn't having a
soul and doesn't thinking about essential things make the most
remarkable difference in her? It is worth going through a fiery
furnace to come out new like that. I called her Abednego the
other day, but she didn't know what I meant."
Then they sat silent and watched the sea for a long time. By
and by the night air grew chill. Peter slipped from the rock and
went
up the beach and came back with an Indian blanket. He put it
very carefully around Linda's shoulders, and when he went to
resume his seat beside her he found one of her arms stretching it
with a blanket corner for him. So he sat down beside her and
drew the corner over his shoulder; and because his right arm was
very much in his way, and it would have been very disagreeable if
Linda had slipped from the rock and fallen into the cold, salt,
unsympathetic Pacific at nine o'clock at night--merely to dispose
of the arm comfortably and to ensure her security, Peter put it
around Linda and drew her up beside him very close. Linda did
not seem to notice. She sat quietly looking at the Pacific and
thinking her own thoughts. When the fog became damp and chill,
she said they must be going, and so they went back to their cars
and drove home through the sheer wonder of the moonlight, through
the perfume of the orange orchards, hearing the night song of the
mockingbirds.
CHAPTER XXXIII. The Lady of the Iris
A few days later Linda and Peter went to San Francisco and helped
celebrate the marriage of Marian and Eugene Snow. They left
Marian in a home carefully designed to insure every comfort and
convenience she ever had planned, furnished in accordance with
her desires. Both Linda and Peter were charmed with little
Deborah Snow; she was a beautiful and an appealing child.
"It seems to me," said Linda, on the train going home, "that
Marian will get more out of life, she will love deeper, she will
work harder, she will climb higher in her profession than she
would have done if she had married John. It is difficult
sometimes, when things are happening, to realize that they are
for the best, but I really believe this thing has been for the
level best. I think Marian is going to be a bigger woman in San
Francisco than she ever would have been in Lilac Valley. With
that thought I must reconcile myself."
"And what about John?" asked Peter. "Is he going to be a bigger
man with Eileen than he would have been with Marian?"
"No," said Linda, "he is not. He didn't do right and he'll have
penalty to pay. Eileen is developing into a lovable and truly
beautiful woman, but she has not the intellect, nor the
education, nor the impulse to stimulate a man's mental processes
and make him outdo himself the way Marian will. John will
probably never know it, but he will have to do his own
stimulating; he will have to vision life for himself. He will
have to find his high hill and climb it with Eileen riding
securely on his shoulders. It isn't really the pleasantest thing
in the world, it isn't truly the thing I wanted to do this
summer--helping them out--but it has seemed to be the work at
hand, the thing Daddy probably would have wanted me to do, so
it's up to me to do all I can for them, just as I did all I could
for Donald. One thing I shall always be delighted about. With
my own ears I heard the pronouncement: Donald had the Jap
beaten; he was at the head of his class before Oka Sayye was
eliminated. The Jap knew it. His only chance lay in getting rid
of his rival. Donald can take the excellent record he has made
in this race to start on this fall when he commences another
battle against some other man's brain for top honors in his
college."
"Will he start with the idea that he wants to be an honor man?"
Linda laughed outright.
"I think," she said, "his idea was that if he were one of fifty
or one hundred leading men it would be sufficient, but I insisted
that if he wanted to be first with me, he would have to be first
in his school work."
"I see," said Peter. "Linda, have you definitely decided that
when you come to your home-making hour, Donald is the man with
whom you want to spend the remainder of your life?"
"Oh, good gracious!" said Linda. "Who's talking about 'homes'
and 'spending the remainder of lives'? Donald and I are school
friends, and we are good companions. You're as bad as Eileen.
She's always trying to suggest things that nobody else ever
thought of, and now Katy's beginning it too."
"Sapheads, all!" said Peter. "Well, allow me to congratulate you
on having given Donald his spurs. I think it's a very fine thing
for him to start to college with the honor idea in his head.
What about your Saturday excursions?"
"They have died an unnatural death," said Linda. "Don and I
fought for them, but the Judge and Mrs. Whiting and Mary Louise
were terrified for fear a bone might slip in Don's foot, or some
revengeful friend or relative of Oka Sayye lie in wait for us.
They won't hear of our going any more. I go every Saturday and
take Donald for a very careful drive over a smooth road with the
Bear Cat cursing our rate of speed all the way. All the fun's
spoiled for all three of us."
"Think I would be any good as a substitute when it comes to field
work?" inquired Peter casually. "I have looked at your desert
garden so much I would know a Cotyledon if I saw it. I believe I
could learn."
"You wouldn't have time to bother," objected Linda. "You're a
man, with a man's business to transact in the world. You have to
hustle and earn money to pay for the bridge and changing the
brook."
"But I had money to pay for the brook and the bridge before I
agreed to them," said Peter.
"Well, then," said Linda, "you should begin to hunt old mahogany
and rugs."
"I hadn't intended to," said Peter; "if they are to be old, I
won't have to do more than to ship them. In storage in Virginia
there are some very wonderful old mahogany and rosewood and rugs
and bric-a-brac enough to furnish the house I am building. The
stuff belonged to a little old aunt of mine who left it to me in
her will, and it was with those things in mind that I began my
house. The plans and finishing will fit that furniture
beautifully."
"Why, you lucky individual!" said Linda. "Nowhere in the world
is there more beautiful furniture than in some of those old homes
in Virginia. There are old Flemish and Dutch and British and
Italian pieces that came into this country on early sailing
vessels for the aristocrats. You don't mean that kind of stuff,
do you, Peter?"
"That is precisely the kind of stuff I do mean," answered Peter.
"Why Peter, if you have furniture like that," cried Linda, "then
all you need is Mary Louise."
"Linda," said Peter soberly, "you are trespassing on delicate
ground again. You selected one wife for me and your plan didn't
work. When that furniture arrives and is installed I'll set
about inducing the lady of my dreams to come and occupy my dream
house, in my own way. I never did give you that job. It was
merely assumed on your part."
"So it was," said Linda. "But you know I could set that iris and
run that brook with more enthusiasm if I knew the lady who was to
walk beside it."
"You do," said Peter. "You know her better than anyone else,
even better than I. Put that in your mental pipe and smoke it!"
"Saints preserve us!" cried Linda. "I believe the man is
planning to take Katy away from me."
"Not FROM you," said Peter, "WITH you."
"Let me know about it before you do it," said Linda with a
careless laugh.
"That's what I'm doing right now," said Peter.
"And I'm going to school," said Linda.
"Of course," said Peter, "but that won't last forever."
Linda entered enthusiastically upon the triple task of getting
Donald in a proper frame of mind to start to college with the
ambition to do good work, of marrying off Eileen and John Gilman,
and of giving her best brain and heart to Jane Meredith. When
the time came, Donald was ready to enter college comfortable and
happy, willing to wait and see what life had in store for him as
he lived it.
When she was sure of Eileen past any reasonable doubt Linda took
her and John to her workroom one evening and showed them her book
contract and the material she had ready, and gave them the best
idea she could of what yet remained to be done. She was not
prepared for their wholehearted praise, for their delight and
appreciation.
Alone, they took counsel as to how they could best help her, and
decided that to be married at once and take a long trip abroad
would be the best way. That would leave Linda to work in quiet
and with no interruption to distract her attention. They could
make their home arrangements when they returned.
When they had gone Linda worked persistently, but her book was
not completed and the publishers were hurrying her when the fall
term of school opened. By the time the final chapter with its
exquisite illustration had been sent in, the first ones were
coming back in proof, and with the proof came the materialized
form of Linda's design for her cover, and there was no Marian to
consult about it. Linda worked until she was confused. Then she
piled the material in the Bear Cat and headed up Lilac Valley.
As she came around the curve and turned from the public road she
saw that for the first time she might cross her bridge; it was
waiting for her. She heard the rejoicing of the water as it fell
from stone to stone where it dipped under the road, and as she
swung across the bridge she saw that she might drive over the
completed road which had been finished in her weeks of absence.
The windows told another story. Peter's furniture had come and
he had been placing it without telling her. She found the front
door standing wide open, so she walked in. With her bundle on
her arm she made her way to Peter's workroom. When he looked up
and saw her standing in his door he sprang to his feet and came
to meet her.
"Peter," she said, "I've taken on more work than I can possibly
finish on time, and I'm the lonesomest person in California
today."
"I doubt that," said Peter gravely. "If you are any lonesomer
than I am you must prove it."
"I have proved it," said Linda quietly. "If you had been as
lonesome as I am you would have come to me. As it is, I have
come to you."
"I see," said Peter rather breathlessly. "What have you there,
Linda? Why did you come?"
"I came for two reasons," said Linda. "I want to ask you about
this stuff. Several times this summer you have heard talk about
Jane Meredith and the Everybody's Home articles. Ever read any
of them, Peter?"
"Yes," said Peter, "I read all of them. Interested in home stuff
these days myself."
"Well," said Linda, dumping her armload before Peter, "there's
the proof and there's the illustration and there's the cover
design for a book to be made from that stuff. Peter, make your
best boy and say 'pleased to meet you' to Jane Meredith."
Peter secured both of Linda's hands and held them. First he
looked at her, then he looked at the material she had piled down
in front of him.
"Never again," said Peter in a small voice, "will I credit myself
with any deep discernment, any keen penetration. How I could
have read that matter and looked at those pictures and not seen
you in and through and over them is a thing I can't imagine.
It's great, Linda, absolutely great! Of course I will help you
any way in the world I can. And what else was it you wanted?
You said two things."
"Oh, the other doesn't amount to much," said Linda. "I only
wanted the comfort of knowing whether, as soon as I graduate, I
may take Katy and come home, Peter."
From previous experience with Linda, Peter had learned that a
girl reared by men is not as other women. He had supposed the
other thing concerning which she had wanted to appeal to him was
on par with her desire for sympathy and help concerning her book.
At her question, with her eyes frankly meeting his, Peter for an
instant felt lightheaded. He almost dodged, he was so sweepingly
taken unawares. Linda was waiting and his brain was not working.
He tried to smile, but he knew she would not recognize as natural
the expression of that whirling moment. She saw his hesitation.
"Of course, if you don't want us, Peter--"
Peter found his voice promptly. Only his God knew how much he
wanted Linda, but there were conditions that a man of Peter's
soul-fiber could not endure. More than life he wanted her, but
he did not want her asleep. He did not want to risk her
awakening to a spoiled life and disappointed hopes.
"But you remember that I told you coming home from San Francisco
that you knew the Lady of my Iris better than anyone else, and
that I was planning to take Katy, not from you, but with you."
"Of course I remember," said Linda. "That is why when Marian and
Eileen and Donald and all my world went past and left me standing
desolate, and my work piled up until I couldn't see my way, I
just started right out to ask you if you would help me with the
proof. Of course I knew you would be glad to do that and I
thought if you really meant in your heart that I was the one to
complete your iris procession, it would be a comfort to me during
the hard work and the lonesome days to have it put in
two-syllable English. Marian said that was the only real way--"
"And Marian is eminently correct. You will have to give me an
ordinary lifetime, Linda, in which to try to make you understand
exactly what this means to me. Perhaps I'll even have to invent
new words in which to express myself."
"Oh, that's all right," said Linda. "It means a lot to me too.
I can't tell you how much I think of you. That first day, as
soon as I put down the Cotyledon safely and tucked in my blouse,
I would have put my hand in yours and started around the world,
if you had asked me to. I have the very highest esteem for you,
Peter."
"Esteem, yes," said Peter slowly. "But Linda-girl, isn't the
sort of alliance I am asking you to enter with me usually based
on something a good bit stronger than 'esteem'?"
"Yes, I think it is," said Linda. "But you needn't worry. I
only wanted the comfort of knowing that I was not utterly alone
again, save for Katy. I'll stick to my book and to my fight for
Senior honors all right."
Peter was blinking his eyes and fighting to breathe evenly. When
he could speak he said as smoothly as possible: "Of course,
Linda. I'll do your proof for you and you may put all your time
on class honors. It merely occurred to me to wonder whether you
realized the full and ultimate significance of what we are
saying; exactly what it means to me and to you."
"Possibly not, Peter," said Linda, smiling on him with utter
confidence. "Everyone says I am my father's daughter, and Father
didn't live to coach me on being your iris decoration, as a woman
would; but, Peter, when the time comes, I have every confidence
in your ability to teach me what you would like me to know
yourself. Don't you agree with me, Peter?"
Making an effort to control himself Peter gathered up the
material Linda had brought and taking her arm he said casually:
"I thoroughly agree with you, dear. You are sanely and health
fully and beautifully right. Now let's go and take Katy into our
confidence, and then you shall show me your ideas before I begin
work on your proof. And after this, instead of you coming to me
I shall always come to you whenever you can spare a minute for
me."
Linda nodded acquiescence.
"Of course! That would be best," she said. "Peter, you are so
satisfyingly satisfactory."