Ben Blair

by Will Lillibridge

  CHAPTER VII

  THE SANITY OF THE WILD

  Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and theconstant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under theeternal law of necessity,--the necessity of sunburnt, stuntedgrass,--the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. Theherds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scatteredfar and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep undercover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blightedgrass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almostbeyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it wasindependent, care-free, and healthy.

  The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palmof a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, andthat was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from thebig artesian well,--a vivid blot of green against the dun background.The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,--a goodly sizedsoft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it hadgrown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about,except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flankedthe infrequent creeks,--creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes,reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed arough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework wasfinished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful asthe cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great citieswhere countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled indesperate competition for daily bread.

  So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like abenediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died downwith the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it wasabsolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the breakof day.

  Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out likeboys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had justarrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood justas he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he hadcome for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filledand lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl wasreflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into thegathering dusk.

  "Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education ofthese youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages."

  Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in hishand.

  "I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one oftwo things to do--either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue."A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately,however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time."

  Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move intocivilization six months of the year--the Winter six?" he suggested.

  Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigaretteskilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he saidhesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came backin the Spring?"

  Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with hislittle finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My planwas for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stayhere and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs.Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change--for a time,anyway."

  Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right,Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough attimes. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and thatlife was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and witha toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness."And Flossie can't grow up wild--I know that. I'll talk your suggestionover with Mollie first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right nowthat we'll accept."

  For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of hispipe upon his heel.

  "Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he saidslowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't wantyou to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the samereason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place."

  Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily.

  "I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzysheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now,though--seeing I didn't before."

  Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but sogradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairienight--a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailableserenity--stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious andmanifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, theirsense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out therealone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears;seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, ofextravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates--how their trueproportions stand revealed against the eternal background ofimmeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme!

  Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here,that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder ifI didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirithad taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon methat such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure ofanother's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," headded after a pause.

  Rankin said nothing.

  Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him toremain so, and he went on.

  "I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, Ibelieve I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another termfor caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies,has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night.

  "I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and myassociates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father,their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I hadmy gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize nowthat I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see itsintolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like therelative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps Icould see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues ofdistance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directlytoward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read itsexpression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now torealize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, andthat's all; but nevertheless I'm happy--happier than I ever realized itwas possible for me to be. I've got enough--more would be a burden tome. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitableprospect of money in the future,--money I don't want, for I'm an onlyson and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand,his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along inlife. Some day--it may be five years, it may be fifteen--he will die andleave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the familydignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before Iwas born."

  Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other'srevelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars depositedin the savings bank against a rainy day.

  But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve andconfidence bare.

  "You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever Ibelieve myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to thinkabout--Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is awoman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn'trealize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold.Perso
nally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossiewould be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side oflife,--the artificial side,--but lived right here, knowing what wetaught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the timecame, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests,and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her,cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and thespeaker turned his face away.

  "God knows,--and He knows also that I love her dearly,--that lookinginto the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."

  The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still.In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near orfar away--no human ear could measure the distance--a prairie owl gaveits weird cry. Then silence fell as before.

  Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.

  "I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"

  The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.

  "You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had aMaster's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a bigscale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you leftculture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a lifeabsolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter.But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you'rehere, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By allthe standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the socialscale. Why do you want to do this?"

  It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin feltthe other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over hisface; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was toostrong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidencewas not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowlyand shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes.

  "For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben,like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but neverthelessa child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs willbe my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge forhimself."

  The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It'sgetting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mountedinto the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night."

  Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night."