Chapter 7

“I never did know nothing like it.”

“You weren't scared?”

“Skeered o' what?” she asked, and Hale wondered if there was anything of which she would be afraid.

They were entering the Gap now and June's eyes got big with wonder over the mighty up-shooting peaks and the rushing torrent.

“See that big rock yonder, June?” June craned her neck to follow with her eyes his outstretched finger.

“Uh, huh.”

“Well, that's called Bee Rock, because it's covered with flowers--purple rhododendrons and laurel--and bears used to go there for wild honey. They say that once on a time folks around here put whiskey in the honey and the bears got so drunk that people came and knocked 'em in the head with clubs.”

“Well, what do you think o' that!” said June wonderingly.

Before them a big mountain loomed, and a few minutes later, at the mouth of the Gap, Hale stopped and turned his horse sidewise.

“There we are, June,” he said.

June saw the lovely little valley rimmed with big mountains. She could follow the course of the two rivers that encircled it by the trees that fringed their banks, and she saw smoke rising here and there and that was all. She was a little disappointed.

“It's mighty purty,” she said, “I never seed”--she paused, but went on without correcting herself--“so much level land in all my life.”

The morning mail had just come in as they rode by the post-office and several men hailed her escort, and all stared with some wonder at her. Hale smiled to himself, drew up for none and put on a face of utter unconsciousness that he was doing anything unusual. June felt vaguely uncomfortable. Ahead of them, when they turned the corner of the street, her eyes fell on a strange tall red house with yellow trimmings, that was not built of wood and had two sets of windows one above the other, and before that Hale drew up.

“Here we are. Get down, little girl.”

“Good-morning!” said a voice. Hale looked around and flushed, and June looked around and stared--transfixed as by a vision from another world--at the dainty figure behind them in a walking suit, a short skirt that showed two little feet in laced tan boots and a cap with a plume, under which was a pair of wide blue eyes with long lashes, and a mouth that suggested active mischief and gentle mockery.

“Oh, good-morning,” said Hale, and he added gently, “Get down, June!”

The little girl slipped to the ground and began pulling her bonnet on with both hands--but the newcomer had caught sight of the Psyche knot that made June look like a little old woman strangely young, and the mockery at her lips was gently accentuated by a smile. Hale swung from his saddle.

“This is the little girl I told you about, Miss Anne,” he said. “She's come over to go to school.” Instantly, almost, Miss Anne had been melted by the forlorn looking little creature who stood before her, shy for the moment and dumb, and she came forward with her gloved hand outstretched. But June had seen that smile. She gave her hand, and Miss Anne straightway was no little surprised; there was no more shyness in the dark eyes that blazed from the recesses of the sun-bonnet, and Miss Anne was so startled when she looked into them that all she could say was: “Dear me!” A portly woman with a kind face appeared at the door of the red brick house and came to the gate.

“Here she is, Mrs. Crane,” called Hale.

“Howdye, June!” said the Widow Crane kindly. “Come right in!” In her June knew straightway she had a friend and she picked up her bundle and followed upstairs--the first real stairs she had ever seen--and into a room on the floor of which was a rag carpet. There was a bed in one corner with a white counterpane and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher, which, too, she had never seen before.

“Make yourself at home right now,” said the Widow Crane, pulling open a drawer under a big looking-glass--“and put your things here. That's your bed,” and out she went.

How clean it was! There were some flowers in a glass vase on the mantel. There were white curtains at the big window and a bed to herself--her own bed. She went over to the window. There was a steep bank, lined with rhododendrons, right under it. There was a mill-dam below and down the stream she could hear the creaking of a water-wheel, and she could see it dripping and shining in the sun--a gristmill! She thought of Uncle Billy and ole Hon, and in spite of a little pang of home-sickness she felt no loneliness at all.

“I KNEW she would be pretty,” said Miss Anne at the gate outside.

“I TOLD you she was pretty,” said Hale.

“But not so pretty as THAT,” said Miss Anne. “We will be great friends.”

“I hope so--for her sake,” said Hale.

* * * * * * *

Hale waited till noon-recess was nearly over, and then he went to take June to the school-house. He was told that she was in her room and he went up and knocked at the door. There was no answer--for one does not knock on doors for entrance in the mountains, and, thinking he had made a mistake, he was about to try another room, when June opened the door to see what the matter was. She gave him a glad smile.

“Come on,” he said, and when she went for her bonnet, he stepped into the room.

“How do you like it?” June nodded toward the window and Hale went to it.

“That's Uncle Billy's mill out thar.”

“Why, so it is,” said Hale smiling. “That's fine.”

The school-house, to June's wonder, had shingles on the OUTSIDE around all the walls from roof to foundation, and a big bell hung on top of it under a little shingled roof of its own. A pale little man with spectacles and pale blue eyes met them at the door and he gave June a pale, slender hand and cleared his throat before he spoke to her.

“She's never been to school,” said Hale; “she can read and spell, but she's not very strong on arithmetic.”

“Very well, I'll turn her over to the primary.” The school-bell sounded; Hale left with a parting prophecy--“You'll be proud of her some day”--at which June blushed and then, with a beating heart, she followed the little man into his office. A few minutes later, the assistant came in, and she was none other than the wonderful young woman whom Hale had called Miss Anne. There were a few instructions in a halting voice and with much clearing of the throat from the pale little man; and a moment later June walked the gauntlet of the eyes of her schoolmates, every one of whom looked up from his book or hers to watch her as she went to her seat. Miss Anne pointed out the arithmetic lesson and, without lifting her eyes, June bent with a flushed face to her task. It reddened with shame when she was called to the class, for she sat on the bench, taller by a head and more than any of the boys and girls thereon, except one awkward youth who caught her eye and grinned with unashamed companionship. The teacher noticed her look and understood with a sudden keen sympathy, and naturally she was struck by the fact that the new pupil was the only one who never missed an answer.

“She won't be there long,” Miss Anne thought, and she gave June a smile for which the little girl was almost grateful. June spoke to no one, but walked through her schoolmates homeward, when school was over, like a haughty young queen. Miss Anne had gone ahead and was standing at the gate talking with Mrs. Crane, and the young woman spoke to June most kindly.

“Mr. Hale has been called away on business,” she said, and June's heart sank--“and I'm going to take care of you until he comes back.”

“I'm much obleeged,” she said, and while she was not ungracious, her manner indicated her belief that she could take care of herself. And Miss Anne felt uncomfortably that this extraordinary young person was steadily measuring her from head to foot. June saw the smart close-fitting gown, the dainty little boots, and the carefully brushed hair. She noticed how white her teeth were and her hands, and she saw that the nails looked polished and that the tips of them were like little white crescents; and she could still see every detail when she sat at her window, looting down at the old mill. She SAW Mr. Hale when he left, the young lady had said; and she had a headache now and was going home to LIE down. She understood now what Hale meant, on the mountainside when she was so angry with him. She was learning fast, and most from the two persons who were not conscious what they were teaching her. And she would learn in the school, too, for the slumbering ambition in her suddenly became passionately definite now. She went to the mirror and looked at her hair--she would learn how to plait that in two braids down her back, as the other school-girls did. She looked at her hands and straightway she fell to scrubbing them with soap as she had never scrubbed them before. As she worked, she heard her name called and she opened the door.

“Yes, mam!” she answered, for already she had picked that up in the school-room.

“Come on, June, and go down the street with me.”

“Yes, mam,” she repeated, and she wiped her hands and hurried down. Mrs. Crane had looked through the girl's pathetic wardrobe, while she was at school that afternoon, had told Hale before he left and she had a surprise for little June. Together they went down the street and into the chief store in town and, to June's amazement, Mrs. Crane began ordering things for “this little girl.”

“Who's a-goin' to pay fer all these things?” whispered June, aghast.

“Don't you bother, honey. Mr. Hale said he would fix all that with your pappy. It's some coal deal or something--don't you bother!” And June in a quiver of happiness didn't bother. Stockings, petticoats, some soft stuff for a new dress and TAN shoes that looked like the ones that wonderful young woman wore and then some long white things.

“What's them fer?” she whispered, but the clerk heard her and laughed, whereat Mrs. Crane gave him such a glance that he retired quickly.

“Night-gowns, honey.”

“You SLEEP in 'em?” said June in an awed voice.

“That's just what you do,” said the good old woman, hardly less pleased than June.

“My, but you've got pretty feet.”

“I wish they were half as purty as--”

“Well, they are,” interrupted Mrs. Crane a little snappishly; apparently she did not like Miss Anne.

“Wrap 'em up and Mr. Hale will attend to the bill.”

“All right,” said the clerk looking much mystified.

Outside the door, June looked up into the beaming goggles of the Hon. Samuel Budd.

“Is THIS the little girl? Howdye, June,” he said, and June put her hand in the Hon. Sam's with a sudden trust in his voice.

“I'm going to help take care of you, too,” said Mr. Budd, and June smiled at him with shy gratitude. How kind everybody was!

“I'm much obleeged,” she said, and she and Mrs. Crane went on back with their bundles.

June's hands so trembled when she found herself alone with her treasures that she could hardly unpack them. When she had folded and laid them away, she had to unfold them to look at them again. She hurried to bed that night merely that she might put on one of those wonderful night-gowns, and again she had to look all her treasures over. She was glad that she had brought the doll because HE had given it to her, but she said to herself “I'm a-gittin' too big now fer dolls!” and she put it away. Then she set the lamp on the mantel-piece so that she could see herself in her wonderful night-gown. She let her shining hair fall like molten gold around her shoulders, and she wondered whether she could ever look like the dainty creature that just now was the model she so passionately wanted to be like. Then she blew out the lamp and sat a while by the window, looking down through the rhododendrons, at the shining water and at the old water-wheel sleepily at rest in the moonlight. She knelt down then at her bedside to say her prayers--as her dead sister had taught her to do--and she asked God to bless Jack--wondering as she prayed that she had heard nobody else call him Jack--and then she lay down with her breast heaving. She had told him she would never do that again, but she couldn't help it now--the tears came and from happiness she cried herself softly to sleep.

XIII

Hale rode that night under a brilliant moon to the worm of a railroad that had been creeping for many years toward the Gap. The head of it was just protruding from the Natural Tunnel twenty miles away. There he sent his horse back, slept in a shanty till morning, and then the train crawled through a towering bench of rock. The mouth of it on the other side opened into a mighty amphitheatre with solid rock walls shooting vertically hundreds of feet upward. Vertically, he thought--with the back of his head between his shoulders as he looked up--they were more than vertical--they were actually concave. The Almighty had not only stored riches immeasurable in the hills behind him--He had driven this passage Himself to help puny man to reach them, and yet the wretched road was going toward them like a snail. On the fifth night, thereafter he was back there at the tunnel again from New York--with a grim mouth and a happy eye. He had brought success with him this time and there was no sleep for him that night. He had been delayed by a wreck, it was two o'clock in the morning, and not a horse was available; so he started those twenty miles afoot, and day was breaking when he looked down on the little valley shrouded in mist and just wakening from sleep.

Things had been moving while he was away, as he quickly learned. The English were buying lands right and left at the gap sixty miles southwest. Two companies had purchased most of the town-site where he was--HIS town-site--and were going to pool their holdings and form an improvement company. But a good deal was left, and straightway Hale got a map from his office and with it in his hand walked down the curve of the river and over Poplar Hill and beyond. Early breakfast was ready when he got back to the hotel. He swallowed a cup of coffee so hastily that it burned him, and June, when she passed his window on her way to school, saw him busy over his desk. She started to shout to him, but he looked so haggard and grim that she was afraid, and went on, vaguely hurt by a preoccupation that seemed quite to have excluded her. For two hours then, Hale haggled and bargained, and at ten o'clock he went to the telegraph office. The operator who was speculating in a small way himself smiled when he read the telegram.

“A thousand an acre?” he repeated with a whistle. “You could have got that at twenty-five per--three months ago.”

“I know,” said Hale, “there's time enough yet.” Then he went to his room, pulled the blinds down and went to sleep, while rumour played with his name through the town.

It was nearly the closing hour of school when, dressed and freshly shaven, he stepped out into the pale afternoon and walked up toward the schoolhouse. The children were pouring out of the doors. At the gate there was a sudden commotion, he saw a crimson figure flash into the group that had stopped there, and flash out, and then June came swiftly toward him followed closely by a tall boy with a cap on his head. That far away he could see that she was angry and he hurried toward her. Her face was white with rage, her mouth was tight and her dark eyes were aflame. Then from the group another tall boy darted out and behind him ran a smaller one, bellowing. Hale heard the boy with the cap call kindly:

“Hold on, little girl! I won't let 'em touch you.” June stopped with him and Hale ran to them.

“Here,” he called, “what's the matter?”

June burst into crying when she saw him and leaned over the fence sobbing. The tall lad with the cap had his back to Hale, and he waited till the other two boys came up. Then he pointed to the smaller one and spoke to Hale without looking around.

“Why, that little skate there was teasing this little girl and--”

“She slapped him,” said Hale grimly. The lad with the cap turned. His eyes were dancing and the shock of curly hair that stuck from his absurd little cap shook with his laughter.

“Slapped him! She knocked him as flat as a pancake.”

“Yes, an' you said you'd stand fer her,” said the other tall boy who was plainly a mountain lad. He was near bursting with rage.

“You bet I will,” said the boy with the cap heartily, “right now!” and he dropped his books to the ground.

“Hold on!” said Hale, jumping between them. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said to the mountain boy.

“I wasn't atter the gal,” he said indignantly. “I was comin' fer him.”

The boy with the cap tried to get away from Hale's grasp.

“No use, sir,” he said coolly. “You'd better let us settle it now. We'll have to do it some time. I know the breed. He'll fight all right and there's no use puttin' it off. It's got to come.”

“You bet it's got to come,” said the mountain lad. “You can't call my brother names.”

“Well, he IS a skate,” said the boy with the cap, with no heat at all in spite of his indignation, and Hale wondered at his aged calm.

“Every one of you little tads,” he went on coolly, waving his hand at the gathered group, “is a skate who teases this little girl. And you older boys are skates for letting the little ones do it, the whole pack of you--and I'm going to spank any little tadpole who does it hereafter, and I'm going to punch the head off any big one who allows it. It's got to stop NOW!” And as Hale dragged him off he added to the mountain boy, “and I'm going to begin with you whenever you say the word.” Hale was laughing now.

“You don't seem to understand,” he said, “this is my affair.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, I don't understand.”

“Why, I'm taking care of this little girl.”

“Oh, well, you see I didn't know that. I've only been here two days. But”--his frank, generous face broke into a winning smile--“you don't go to school. You'll let me watch out for her there?”

“Sure! I'll be very grateful.”

“Not at all, sir--not at all. It was a great pleasure and I think I'll have lots of fun.” He looked at June, whose grateful eyes had hardly left his face.

“So don't you soil your little fist any more with any of 'em, but just tell me--er--er--”

“June,” she said, and a shy smile came through her tears.

“June,” he finished with a boyish laugh. “Good-by sir.”

“You haven't told me your name.”

“I suppose you know my brothers, sir, the Berkleys.”

“I should say so,” and Hale held out his hand. “You're Bob?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I knew you were coming, and I'm mighty glad to see you. I hope you and June will be good friends and I'll be very glad to have you watch over her when I'm away.”

“I'd like nothing better, sir,” he said cheerfully, and quite impersonally as far as June was concerned. Then his eyes lighted up.

“My brothers don't seem to want me to join the Police Guard. Won't you say a word for me?”

“I certainly will.”

“Thank you, sir.”

That “sir” no longer bothered Hale. At first he had thought it a mark of respect to his superior age, and he was not particularly pleased, but when he knew now that the lad was another son of the old gentleman whom he saw riding up the valley every morning on a gray horse, with several dogs trailing after him--he knew the word was merely a family characteristic of old-fashioned courtesy.

“Isn't he nice, June?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Have you missed me, June?”

June slid her hand into his. “I'm so glad you come back.” They were approaching the gate now.

“June, you said you weren't going to cry any more.” June's head drooped.

“I know, but I jes' can't help it when I git mad,” she said seriously. “I'd bust if I didn't.”

“All right,” said Hale kindly.

“I've cried twice,” she said.

“What were you mad about the other time?”

“I wasn't mad.”

“Then why did you cry, June?”

Her dark eyes looked full at him a moment and then her long lashes hid them.

“Cause you was so good to me.”

Hale choked suddenly and patted her on the shoulder.

“Go in, now, little girl, and study. Then you must take a walk. I've got some work to do. I'll see you at supper time.”

“All right,” said June. She turned at the gate to watch Hale enter the hotel, and as she started indoors, she heard a horse coming at a gallop and she turned again to see her cousin, Dave Tolliver, pull up in front of the house. She ran back to the gate and then she saw that he was swaying in his saddle.

“Hello, June!” he called thickly.

Her face grew hard and she made no answer.

“I've come over to take ye back home.”

She only stared at him rebukingly, and he straightened in his saddle with an effort at self-control--but his eyes got darker and he looked ugly.

“D'you hear me? I've come over to take ye home.”

“You oughter be ashamed o' yourself,” she said hotly, and she turned to go back into the house.

“Oh, you ain't ready now. Well, git ready an' we'll start in the mornin'. I'll be aroun' fer ye 'bout the break o' day.”

He whirled his horse with an oath--June was gone. She saw him ride swaying down the street and she ran across to the hotel and found Hale sitting in the office with another man. Hale saw her entering the door swiftly, he knew something was wrong and he rose to meet her.

“Dave's here,” she whispered hurriedly, “an' he says he's come to take me home.”

“Well,” said Hale, “he won't do it, will he?” June shook her head and then she said significantly:

“Dave's drinkin'.”

Hale's brow clouded. Straightway he foresaw trouble--but he said cheerily:

“All right. You go back and keep in the house and I'll be over by and by and we'll talk it over.” And, without another word, she went. She had meant to put on her new dress and her new shoes and stockings that night that Hale might see her--but she was in doubt about doing it when she got to her room. She tried to study her lessons for the next day, but she couldn't fix her mind on them. She wondered if Dave might not get into a fight or, perhaps, he would get so drunk that he would go to sleep somewhere--she knew that men did that after drinking very much--and, anyhow, he would not bother her until next morning, and then he would be sober and would go quietly back home. She was so comforted that she got to thinking about the hair of the girl who sat in front of her at school. It was plaited and she had studied just how it was done and she began to wonder whether she could fix her own that way. So she got in front of the mirror and loosened hers in a mass about her shoulders--the mass that was to Hale like the golden bronze of a wild turkey's wing. The other girl's plaits were the same size, so that the hair had to be equally divided--thus she argued to herself--but how did that girl manage to plait it behind her back? She did it in front, of course, so June divided the bronze heap behind her and pulled one half of it in front of her and then for a moment she was helpless. Then she laughed--it must be done like the grass-blades and strings she had plaited for Bub, of course, so, dividing that half into three parts, she did the plaiting swiftly and easily. When it was finished she looked at the braid, much pleased--for it hung below her waist and was much longer than any of the other girls' at school. The transition was easy now, so interested had she become. She got out her tan shoes and stockings and the pretty white dress and put them on. The millpond was dark with shadows now, and she went down the stairs and out to the gate just as Dave again pulled up in front of it. He stared at the vision wonderingly and long, and then he began to laugh with the scorn of soberness and the silliness of drink.

“YOU ain't June, air ye?” The girl never moved. As if by a preconcerted signal three men moved toward the boy, and one of them said sternly:

“Drop that pistol. You are under arrest.' The boy glared like a wild thing trapped, from one to another of the three--a pistol gleamed in the hand of each--and slowly thrust his own weapon into his pocket.