Chapter 2

While summer was fading into autumn, and autumn was merging into winter again, the naming of the little girl was not forgotten. The subject came up every time her mother brought out the new pair of sleeves which she was embroidering. But it was talked over amicably, the big brothers having relinquished all right to a share in the selection because their mother had at last taken an irrevocable stand in favor of her own choice, and had intrenched her position by a promise that they could have that year's muskrat money. So when Christmas morning dawned and the little girl temporarily received her long, dignified name, together with a beaver pelt for a cap, the big brothers, whittling shingles into shape for the stretching of their winter's catch, silently accepted the decision.

The long, dignified name suited the little girl. She had grown so tall that she could look over the St. Bernard's back, and so agile that she had walked out six pairs of moccasins in as many months. And when the new shoes arrived and the sleeves were finished, she grew so proud that she wanted to wear her gobelin blue apron every day.

As spring opened, and the last tuck was taken out of the robe, the big brothers put their guns and traps away in the attic, and once more turned to the plowing and planting of the fields. But, in spite of the farm work, they found time to make preparations for the approaching baptism. They painted the light wagon, giving the box a glossy black surface and the wheels a coat of green, while the little girl's mother began three suits for them, and a brand-new dress for herself out of one she had brought with her when the family came to the plains. The evenings were no less busy. The mother sewed steadily, the big brothers fixed up the light harness, and the little girl, scorning sleep, alternately hindered and helped them, and held on to the ends of tugs and reins with her pudgy hands while the big brothers greased and rubbed and polished.

When the trip to the reservation was less than a week off, the preparations for it were redoubled, and the farm was for a time neglected. The little girl's mother put the last stitches on the new clothes; the big brothers, each having firmly refused to let either of the others try a hand at clipping him, made a journey to the post-office to get their hair cut by the hardware man; and the little girl wore a despised sunbonnet, had her yellow locks put up on rags, and went to bed every night with clabbered milk on her face.

At last the great day arrived. Early in the morning, before the rising sun flamed against the eastern windows, an ambitious young rooster, perched on the cultivator outside, gave such a loud, croupy call to the farm-yard that he awakened the little girl. She, in turn, awakened her mother. So it was in good time that the family, after eating a quick breakfast and hitching the gray colts to the newly painted wagon, climbed in and started off.

The little girl, sitting on the front seat between her mother and the eldest brother, her christening robe and the kid shoes wrapped up carefully and clasped in her arms, swelled with importance as the colts, resplendent in their new harness, trotted briskly down the rows of ash saplings in front of the house and turned the corner into the main road. Speechless and happy, she sat with her lips pressed tightly together beneath the big sunbonnet that hid the rag-wound corkscrews on her sore little head; and when the team crossed the Vermilion and passed the sod shanty on the bluffs, she did not even turn her eyes from the long, straight road that stretched westward to glance at the Swede boy who had come out to see her go by.

But before the ride was half over she grew very tired. So, after she had sleepily dropped the shoes and the robe into the hay in the wagon-box several times, she munched a cooky, drank some buttermilk, and was lifted to the hind seat, where the biggest brother held her in his arms. When she next opened her eyes, the team was standing in front of Officers' Row, and the colonel and his wife were beside the wagon helping her mother down.

As soon as dinner was over, the little girl was carried off to be dressed, though she wanted to stay in the parlor and play with the colonel's son; and when she was ready for the baptism, the big brothers came in to see her as she stood proudly upon the snowy counterpane of the wide feather-bed, the embroidered robe sticking out saucily over her stiff petticoats and upheld by two sturdy, white-stockinged legs. On her shining curls perched a big white satin bow, while incasing each foot, and completing the whole, was a dainty, soft kid shoe.

"My, you're a blossom!" gasped the biggest brother, walking around and around her; "an' not any of your skimpy flowers, neither; just a whacking big white rose with a yellow center!"

The white rose made no reply, for she had upset on the fat feathers in trying to walk, had broken the string that held the pillow-shams, and had mussed her stiff petals. So the colonel's wife put her on a paper spread over a leather trunk.

When the two families started for the sod church, she was carried by the admiring biggest brother, and on each side of her walked her mother and the colonel's wife, the others following. She kept turning around to look at the colonel's son as they went along, and so did not see the church until she was close to it.

It made a quaint picture in the warm June sunlight as the little procession neared it. The rude cross surmounting the gable above its entrance was twined with morning-glory vines that had found their way to it after hiding the low, thick, black walls beneath; and surrounding the building was a fence of scantlings--built every spring by the chaplain to keep the troop horses and the commissary's cows from grazing off its sides, and stolen every fall by the half-breeds when the first frosts came--that served as a hitching-post for raw-boned army mounts and scraggy Indian ponies. Beyond this circle were wagons and big, clumsy, box-topped carts from far-lying farms, with oxen tied to their wheels and swaying their weary necks under heavy yokes.

The church still wore its wedding decorations of cat-tails and willow-boughs when the door swung open to admit the christening party, and over the step that led up to the altar hung a golden bell of heart-leaved buttercups. As the little girl crossed the threshold, she looked on the crowded, waiting congregation with eager, half-frightened eyes. On each side of the aisle, filling the rear benches, were Indians and half-breeds, the gay government blankets of the men and the bright calico dresses, striped shawls, and gayer blankets of the women setting off their wide, stolid faces; here and there among them, in greasy breeches and flannel shirts, were rough cattlemen and trappers; and the troop's famous scout, the half-breed Eagle Eye, sat in the midst of them, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of her. Instead of the red handkerchief that he wore about his forehead to keep his black hair out of his eyes, he had tied, in honor of the occasion, a strip of bleached muslin, and under it his eyes sparkled and his teeth gleamed as he smiled at the white papoose.

When the biggest brother started toward the altar, the little girl hurriedly smoothed the christening robe and put out the white kid shoes so that everybody might see them. And when they passed the frontier families and came in line with the aristocratic army benches, her cheeks were flushed a vivid pink, and she was sitting proudly erect.

Then she beheld the chaplain standing at the step in a long, white dress. Scarcely had she gotten over her surprise at his strange appearance, when she saw a man join him who was garbed even more wonderfully. His dark hair was combed back and rested, like Eagle Eye's, on his shoulders, and the sleeves of his robe were wide and ruffled at the wrist. It was the good bishop.

The next moment they were standing before him, the little girl and the biggest brother at the middle of the line and the others on each side.

The chaplain raised his hand, and the white people stood up. And after he had waved both arms commandingly and scowled, the Indians and the half-breeds got up, too, and slouched against the benches while the good bishop said a long prayer and followed it with a longer reading. The biggest brother waited very quietly through it all, but he shifted the little girl from one arm to the other two or three times.

When the reading was over, the little girl's mother answered a few questions in a low voice. As the good bishop began to pray again, the chaplain lifted a silver vessel in his hands and held it up solemnly. The little girl saw that it was the colonel's fruit-dish, and that it was full of water.

She looked about inquiringly, but all who were near her had their heads bent; and at the close of the prayer, before she had time to question, the good bishop took her into his arms.

She was frightened and wriggled to get down, not seeing the warning in her mother's eyes. The good bishop paid no attention to her, however, but leaned forward and spoke to the colonel and his wife.

"Name this child," he said.

The little girl did not hear their answer, for she was watching his hand. It was poised just above the fruit-dish, as if he meant to plunge it into the water.

She caught her breath and raised herself suddenly in his arms. The whole church was bending and stretching to see her, but she forgot the staring people, and was thinking only of her beautiful robe, the kid shoes, and the threatening water.

A brief, solemn silence pervaded the waiting church. It was broken by the good bishop's voice; and, at the same time, his ruffled hand sank into the fruit-dish, held lightly between the chaplain's finger-tips, and came to the surface wet and brimming. As she saw this, the little girl's face turned from pink to white, and she caught her breath again.

Then, just as he bent his eyes upon her and lifted his slender fingers toward her head, the little girl, giving a sudden scared, angry squirm, struck the silver dish a resentful, upward blow with one vigorous, white kid shoe.

The vessel bounded out of the hands of the horrified army chaplain, overturned upon his immaculate robe, and, empty, fell clattering to the step at his feet. And while it spun there, top-like, for one terrible moment, the baptismal party, standing in front of the good bishop, gazed in agonized, reproachful silence at the little girl, who was looking back at them defiantly from the shelter of the pulpit.

* * * * *

LATER when the good bishop laid damp fingers upon her hair, she was christened. But the family at the farm-house always declared that she did not deserve the long, dignified name chosen for her; and the biggest brother as often added that, because the amount of water has everything to do with a baptism, the honor rightfully belonged to the dripping army chaplain.

III

"LITTLE BOY BLUE"

UP and down the oxen toiled before the plow, licking out their tongues, as they went along, for wisps of the sweet, new grass which the mold-board was turning under. After them came the biggest brother, striving with all his might to keep the beam level and the handles from dancing as the steel share cut the sod into wide, thick ribbons, damp and black on one side, on the other green and decked with flowers. And, following the biggest brother, trotted the little girl, who from time to time left the cool furrow to run ahead and give the steers a lash of the gad she carried, or hopped to one side to keep from stepping with her bare feet upon the fat earthworms that were rolled out into the sunlight, where they were pounced upon by rivaling blackbirds circling in the rear.

It was a cloudy morning near the end of May. The spring work on the farm was long past, and already the fields rippled with corn and wheat, barley and oats, and blue-flowered flax. But it was not yet time to begin the yearly onslaught against intruding weeds, so the big brothers were busying themselves with the erection of a sod smoke-house, which, at hog-killing time, would receive fresh hams and sides for the winter's curing.

A strip of prairie land bordering the northern edge of the grain had been chosen to furnish the building material because its fertile top layer was tenaciously root-bound and free from boulders. And while the biggest brother plowed it up, the other two came slowly along with the Studebaker, chopped the sods into pieces twice as long as they were wide, and laid them carefully on the bed of the wagon.

The little girl let the biggest brother hang the gad about his neck and helped for a while with the sod-carrying. But every time she put her chubby arms around a slab, it broke in two; so her brothers told her to stop. Then she climbed to the wagon-seat and drove the horses beside the furrows, and, later, went to the farm-yard with a load.

The smoke-house was being built beside the corn-cribs. Before any sod had been laid, the eldest brother had marked out on the ground with a stick a nine-foot square, and in one side of it had left a narrow door-space where two scantlings were driven in upright to serve as sides of the casing. Then, with the dirt lines as a guide, he had begun the walls, giving them the thickness of two sods. When the little girl rode up they were already above her head. But she did not wait to see the load she had accompanied bring them up to the eldest brother's waist, for it was close upon noon and it occurred to her that there would soon be a table to set in the kitchen, so she hurried out of call up the weedy path between the wheat and the corn, to where the oxen were still lazily drawing the plow.

She picked up the gad again and sent it whisking about the black flanks of the steers. But when she had gone up and down till three long sods lay lapping each other like heavy ruffles, she grew tired of following the biggest brother and went up the carnelian bluff to the stone pile and sat down.

Her mother, standing at the kitchen door, shading her eyes with her hand, saw the fluttering blue calico on the hillside and smiled at it through tears. Nearly four years and a half had passed since the rock-covered mound had risen among the snow-drifts, yet during all this time the little girl had never been told its sad secret, for the family wished her to go about the farm without fear.

She had often wondered, however, why, when her mother wanted to have a good cry, she always sat at the kitchen window that looked out across the row of stunted apple-trees, the sorghum patch, and finally the corn, to where the carnelian bluff lifted its pebbly head; and why, whenever the big brothers saw their mother weeping there, if it were winter, they always coaxed her into the sitting-room, where a pile of magazines and books, bought to divert her, lay beside the lounge; or, if it were summer, out into the front garden, where a low bench stood against the house, under the lilac-bush, facing the round and diamond-shaped beds of scarlet verbenas, yellow marguerites, bachelor's-buttons and pansies.

But, though the little girl was ignorant of what the stone pile hid, she was, nevertheless, thinking of mournful things as she sat there. The Christmas before, Santa Claus had stingily dropped but one present down the long stovepipe that carried up the smoke from the sitting-room stove--one present to serve as both a holiday and a birthday remembrance; and that had been a big, ugly crockery doll's head with bumpy brown hair, staring blue eyes, fat, pink cheeks, and flinty shoulders. The gift, aided by the confidences of the Swede boy, had almost shaken her belief in Santa Claus, whom she had asked in a letter to give her a bought riding-whip and a book that told more about Robinson Crusoe. Instead, the homely head had been left, and she felt sure (and the Swede boy assured her) that it could only have been picked out for her by the eldest brother. And when, after gazing down upon her stupidly for two or three months from the clock-shelf, it was finally fastened, by thread run through the holes in its shoulders, to a clumsy, jointless, sawdust body, it had only served to remind her more bitterly than ever of the ill fortune that could make two great events in one small life fall upon the selfsame day.

The little girl had often complained of the stork's bringing her at Christmas-time, and had been promised by the biggest brother that, when they should all agree that she was very good and deserving--because she had cheerfully done everything she had been told--_she should have her birthday changed to June_! But so far the promise had never been fulfilled, for the little girl did not hold, as they did, that the compact included the washing of potatoes or the scraping of the mush-kettle. Now, June was almost at hand again, and, as she waited on the bluff for the cow-horn to sound the call for dinner, she wondered if the treasured change in dates would ever be made.

While she was still perched upon the topmost rock, she heard a faint shout from the farm-yard, and looking that way, saw the eldest brother standing on the seat of the Studebaker, frantically waving his arms. She got down, ran around to the western side of the hill, and called to the biggest brother on the level prairie below her. He stopped the ox-team and tried to understand what the eldest was saying. But it was not made clear until the youngest unhitched a horse from the wagon and mounting it, still harnessed, started across the wheat-field with the dogs in full cry before him.

The herd, which before breakfast had been driven north to the river meadows, was returning to feed upon the young crops, and was dangerously near the river edge of the wheat. The cattle were grazing as they advanced, the cows leading and the beef cattle bringing up the rear. And when the foremost animals saw the youngest brother cantering toward them with the pack, they only hurried forward the faster so as to get a taste of the forbidden grain before they were compelled to turn tail.

Snapping and yelping, the dogs came down upon them, and the herd, two hundred strong, fled before them, with futile reaches after mouthfuls of the wheat as they ran. But, scarcely an hour later, when the little girl was sauntering home behind the biggest brother and the oxen, the cattle faced about and started slowly back again; and, when the family was just gathering about the dinner-table, they swarmed across the prairie and into the fields. This time the youngest brother not only rode out and drove them back to the meadows, but remained between them and the farm till the biggest finished his meal and relieved him.

It was plain that some one would have to stay with the cattle throughout the rest of the day; for, having gotten a taste of the grain, they would return as often as they were driven away and trample down what they did not steal. But not one of the big brothers felt that he could be spared from the work on the smoke-house.

"Say, ma," said the eldest brother, looking at the little girl as he got up from the dinner-table and took his hat from the elk antlers in the hall, "I've thought the whole thing out, and I don't see why this youngster can't herd. She learned to ride; now she can keep them cattle in the meadows as well as not."

"Oh, you know she's too little," answered her mother; "she'd fall off her pony if the cattle crowded, and get stepped on."

"Ah, too little," he said superciliously. "All she'd have to do is stay behind the cattle and sick the dogs every little while."

The little girl's mother shook her head.

"Well, we could put her on the pinto and fasten her feet so's she couldn't fall off," he persisted.

The mother looked down at the little girl, still busy over her plate of bacon and eggs.

"Well, maybe she could do that," she said thoughtfully.

"Oh, I'm too little," expostulated the little girl, between two bites.

"Little! You great big thing!" scolded the eldest brother as he went out. "What are you good for, anyway? Not worth your salt."

When he was gone around the corner of the kitchen, the little girl left her high bench and sat down crossly upon the door-step. "He's always 'busing me," she complained. "When _I_ want to do anyfing, he says I'm too little; but when _he_ wants me to do anyfing he finks I'm big enough."

"Now, pet lamb," said her mother, "you don't have to herd if you don't want to. But I think you'd be safe on the pinto, and, perhaps, if you went the boys would all remember their promise about your birthday."

The little girl, understanding what was meant, looked up at her mother for a moment. Then she whipped through the sitting-room to her bed, pulled on a pair of beaded moccasins, took her sailor hat off a nail, and started for the smoke-house.

* * * * *

THE eldest brother went across the reservation road to where the pinto was picketed in the grassy swale, and brought her in, with her blind black colt trotting at her heels. And when he had bridled her and girthed on the soft, woolly pelt of a sheep, he lifted the little girl to her back and fastened both bare ankles to the cinch with hame-straps. Then he put the short reins into the little girl's hands, gave the mare a good slap on the flanks, and watched horse, rider, and colt depart northward toward the cattle. For it had been settled, when the biggest brother came in, that if she would try her best to keep the cattle in the meadows so that the smoke-house could be finished, that very day her birthday would be changed from December to June.

As soon as the little girl reached the open prairie, the big brothers returned to their work on the smoke-house. And by the time that the herd, with the pinto and the dogs behind it, was but a collection of white and brown specks against the green of the plains, they were so busy that they had forgotten her. The youngest brother lifted the sods from the wagon and handed them to the biggest, who helped the eldest lay them, one layer lengthwise, the next crosswise, and always in such a way that the middle of a slab came directly above the ends of the ones beneath.

In the early afternoon, as they worked steadily, the clouds began to mass darker across the gray sky; and the air, warm throughout the morning, became chill. A rain-storm seemed on the way, and the big brothers hurried so as to get the house covered before a shower came to wash the walls. Two were left to lay the sods, and the other set about sawing scantlings into lengths for the framework of the hip-roof, while their mother came out and bound straw into flat bunches for the thatch.

Up in the river meadows, the little girl, secure in her seat on the pinto, rode to and fro along the southern edge of the herd, in front of the lowered foreheads and tossing horns of the cattle. Behind her came the blind black colt, switching his tail and whinnying fretfully; but, despite his pleading, the little girl, eager to win the reward she had been promised, never paused in her sentry duty. The pinto fretted, too, for she also was hungry. But the little girl held the short bridle-reins tight and did not let the mare get her nose to the ground lest they slip over her head and out of reach.

The dogs were stretched lazily on some soft badger mounds not far away. The St. Bernard was not with them, for the big brothers were afraid that Napoleon, the white bull, would gore him, and had chained him up at home; and the collie was watching the sheep around the sloughs to the south. So only the wolf-dogs, with Luffree at their head, helped the little girl turn an animal back when it broke from the rest and started toward the grain.