A Prairie Infanta

by Eva Wilder Brodhead

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WISE IMPULSES

  The next day was the last of the school term, and it afforded thedoctor an opportunity for carrying out his resolve. There was a base ofsound reason in his purposed action. It might give the girl pain,indeed, to hear what he felt impelled to tell her; it is not pleasantto have a broken bone set, yet the end is a good one. The doctor feltthat Lola's mind held a smoldering distrust of Jane, which not even theconsciousness of Jane's love could dispel.

  The girl, without directly formulating so strong a case against Jane,obscurely held her accountable for that division from her father whichshe deplored. Doubtless it was affection which had caused Jane to askMr. Keene to leave his child behind. Affection also might havejealously deterred Jane from giving Lola her father's infrequentletters. But affection cannot excuse what is unworthy; and Lola'sthoughts ran vaguely with a distrust which did something to embitterthe wholesome tides of life.

  "I am right to put an end to Miss Combs's unwise benevolence," thoughtthe doctor, as he tied his horse outside the schoolhouse.

  Throngs of white-frocked girls were chattering about the yard. Rows ofMexican children squatted silent and stolid against the red walls,unmoved by those excitements of closing day which stirred theirAmerican mates to riotous glee. The wives of the miners and townmerchants were arriving in twos and threes. Gaunt Mexican women,holding quiet babies in their looped _rebozos_, stood about, hardlyever speaking.

  Senora Vigil, more lavishly built than the rest of her countrywomenand gayer of port than they, moved from group to group, talkingcheerfully. Jane also awaited the opening of the schoolhouse door,watching the scene with interest and having no conception of herself asan object of note, in her elderly black bonnet and short jean skirt.

  Presently Senor Juarez, the Mexican master, appeared. The bell in theslate dome rang loudly, and the throng filed indoors. There was theusual array of ceremonies appropriate to occasions like this. Smallboys spoke "pieces," which they forgot, being audibly prompted, whilethe audience experienced untold pangs of sympathy and foreboding.Little beribboned girls exhibited their skill in dialogue, and readessays and filed through some patriotic drill, to which a forest oftiny flags gave splendid emphasis at impressive junctures.

  Then Edith May Jonas, solemn with anxiety and importance, rose tosing. She was a plain, flaxen-haired girl, with a Teutonic cast offeature and a thin voice; but every one, benumbed with speechlessadmiration of her blue silk dress, derived from her performance animpression of surpassing beauty and unbounded talent.

  "_Caramba!_ but she is like a vision!" sighed Senora Vigil in Jane'sear. "Look at Senora Jonas, the mother! Well may she weep tears ofpride! She is a great lady--Senora Jonas. Just now she havecondescended to say to me, ''Ow-de-do?' and me, I bow low. _'A los picsde V. senora!'_ I say. _Ay Dios!_ if I but had a child with yellowhair, like the Senorita Edith May! _Que chula!_"

  "Sh!" breathed Jane. "There's my Lola on the platform!"

  Lola had grown tall in the past year. She was fairer than the Mexicans,although not fair in the fashion of Edith May, but with a faint citronhue which, better than pink and white, befitted the extreme darknessof her hair and eyes. She wore a dress of thin white, and around herslender neck was a curious old strand of turquoise beads which had beenfound carefully hidden away in the Mexican trunk. There was an air ofsimple reserve about her which touched the doctor. She was only a childfor all her stately looks, and he began to hate his task.

  Lola read a little address which had been assigned to her as arepresentative of the highest class. She read the farewell lines almostmonotonously, without effect, without inflection, almost coldly. Yet ashe listened, the doctor had an impression of vital warmth underlyingthe restraint of the girl's tone--an impression of feeling that lay farbelow the surface, latent and half-suspected.

  "There is something there to be reckoned with," he decided. "But what?Is it a noble impulse which will spring to life in rich gratitude whenI tell her my story? Or will a mere hurt, passionate vanity rise tooverwhelm us all in its acrid swell? I shall soon know."

  In the buzz of gaiety and gossip which succeeded the final reading, heapproached Lola and beckoned her away from the crowd. She came runningto him smiling, saying, "Senor!"

  "I want to say something to you, my dear. Come here where it's quiet."The doctor was finding the simplicity and trustfulness of her gaze verytrying. "Lola," he continued, desperately, "I--you must listen to me."Just at this point something struck against his arm, and turningirritably, he saw Jane.

  "What's all this?" said she, placidly. "What are you saying to make mylittle girl so wide-eyed? Remember, she has a fierce old guardian--onethat expects every one to 'tend to his own affairs!" Jane spokejestingly, but the doctor knew he was worsted. Jane had been watchinghim.

  "But, _tia_!" interposed Lola, "the doctor was just going to tell mesomething very important!"

  "He was maybe going to tell you that you are going to Pueblo next fall!Yes, honey, it's all fixed!" She turned a joyous, defiant face on thedoctor, who cast his hands abroad as if he washed them of the wholeaffair; while Lola, beaming with pleasure, rushed off to tell the newsto Senor Juarez.

  "You'll regret this!" said the doctor, somehow feeling glad of his ownfailure.

  "Well, _she_ won't!" cried Jane, watching Lola's flight with tendereyes.

  "Sometime she is going to find out all this deceit!" he added.

  "I know," said Jane. "I know. And then she'll quit trusting me forever.But if I'm willing to stand it, nobody else need to worry." With thistacit rebuke she left him, and thereafter the doctor respected herwishes.

  A month or so after Lola's departure northward, Jane's solicitude wasenlivened by an event of startling importance. She was notified by theDauntless Company that two entries, the fourth and fifth east, hadentered her property, in which she had never suspected the presence ofcoal, and that the owners were prepared to negotiate with her suitableterms for the right of working the vein in question.

  When the matter of royalties was settled and several hundred dollarspaid to Jane's account for coal already taken out, she had a suddenrush of almost tearful joy. Every month would come to her, while thecoal lasted, a determinate sum of money. She regarded the fact in asort of ecstasy, and resolved upon many things.

  First she banished from her house the shadow of the mortgage. Then,glowing with enterprise, she proceeded to extend and embellish herproperty in a way which speedily set the town by the ears, and arousedevery one to dark prophecies as to what must happen when her moneyshould all be gone, and nothing left her but to face poverty in thepalatial five-room dwelling now growing up around the pine homestead ofthe past.

  Lola liked adobe houses; and fortunately Enrique Diaz, the blacksmith,had a fine lot of adobes which he had made before frost, and put undercover against a possible extension of his shop, "to-morrow or some timeafter a while." These Jane bought, and deftly the chocolate walls arosein her _vega_, crowned finally with a crimson roof, which could be seentwo miles off at Lynn. There was a porch, too, with snow-white pillars,and an open fireplace, all tiled with adobe, in which might blaze firesof pinon wood, full of resin and burning as nothing else can burn savedriftwood, sodden with salt and oil and the mystery of old ocean.

  Then, after a little, there arrived in town a vaulted box, in which thedullest fancy might conjecture a piano. Greatly indeed were headsshaken. If doom were easily invoked, Jane would hardly have lived tounpack the treasure and help to lift it up the porch steps.

  "_Por Dios!_" gasped Ana Vigil. "It must have cost fifty dollars! Andfor what good, senora?"

  "Lola's taking music-lessons," said Jane. "Her and Edith May Jonas islearning a duet. I want she should be able to go right on practising."

  "Ah!" said Ana, innocently. "She will not say your house now is 'ugly,'will she? And you, senora, shall you get a longer dress and do yourhair up, so she will not say of you like she did, 'How queer'?"

  Jane looked at Ana. Surely she c
ould not mean to be ill-tempered--Ana,with a face as broad and placid as a standing pool? No, no, Ana was toosimple to wish to pain any one! Yet as Jane dwelt upon Ana's queries,it came slowly to Jane that certain changes in herself might be well.

  She obeyed this wise, if late, impulse, and when Lola came home in Juneshe had her reward. The girl cried out with surprise as she beheld onthe platform at Lynn that tall figure in a soft gray gown, fashionedwith some pretensions to the mode, but simple and dignified as befittedJane's stature and look. There was a bonnet to match, too elderly forJane's years, and of a Quakerish form. But this was less the cause forthe general difference in Jane's aspect than the fact that her brownhair, parted smoothly on the broad, benignant brow, now had its endstucked up in a neat knot.

  "_Tia! tia!_" exclaimed Lola, herself glowing like a prairie-rose, asshe dashed out of the train. "What have you done? You are good to lookat! Your hair--oh, _asombro!_"

  But when the white burros of the mail wagon, wildly skimming theplains, brought them in sight of the new house, Lola's joy turned whiteon her cheeks, and she clutched Jane's arm.

  "_Tia_--our house! It is gone--gone!"

  Then was Jane's time to laugh with sheer happiness, to throw open gateand door and usher her guest into the old room where Tesuque sat andthe Navajo blanket still covered the couch as of yore, and nothing wasaltered except that now other rooms opened brightly on all sides, andin one a piano displayed its white teeth in beaming welcome.

  Lola's blank face, whereon every moment printed a new delight, was toJane a sight hardly to be matched. The satisfaction grew also withtime, as the piano awoke to such strains as Lola had mastered, andpeople strolled up from the village ways to listen, and, to Jane's deepgratification, to praise the musician. The Mexicans came in throngs,filling the air with a chorus of "_Caspitas!_" and "_Carambas!_" Noneof them called Lola "_Infanta_" nowadays unless it were in a spirit offriendly pleasantry; and she herself had lost much of the air which hadbrought this contemptuous honor upon her childish head.

  "She is Mexican--yes!" they nodded to one another, deriving much simplesatisfaction from the circumstance. For was it not provocative ofracial pride that one of their compatriots should be able to maketunes--actual tunes!--issue from those keys which responded to theirown tentative touches merely with thin shrieks or a dull, rumblingnote?

  "Lolita is like she was," remarked Alejandro Vigil to his sister on themorning of the Fourth of July, as they wandered around the commonbeyond the _arroyo_.

  This space of desert had an air of festive import, for unwontedcelebrations of the day were forward. A pavilion roofed with greenboughs had been built for the occasion, on the skirts of an oval coursewhich was to be the ground of sundry feats of cowboy horsemanship, andof a foot-race between Piedro Cordova and the celebrated ValentinoCortes. There would be music, also, before long. Already the sound of aviolin in process of tuning rang cheerfully through the open. TheDeclaration of Independence was to be read by the lawyer, who might beseen in the pavilion wiping his brow in anticipation of this excitingduty. A tribe of little girls, who were to sing national airs, wereeven now climbing into the muslin-draped seats of the lumber-wagonallotted them.

  It was to be a great day for Aguilar! People from Santa Clara andHastings and Gulnare were arriving in all manner of equipages. Mexicanvehicles made a solid stockade along the west of the track. In theupper benches of the pavilion were ranged the flower and chivalry ofthe town--the families of the mine boss, the liveryman, the lawyer, theschoolmaster and several visiting personages. Jane, in her gray gown,was among them; beside her sat Lola, with Edith May Jonas.

  "And did you think going away to school would make her different?"inquired Ana of her brother. "What should it do to her, 'Andro? Makeher white like Miss Jonas? _Vaya!_ Lola is only a Mexican!"

  "She is not ashamed to be one, either!" cried Alejandro, acceptingAna's tacit imputation of some inferiority in their race. "And she iswhite enough," he added, regarding Lola as she sat smiling and talking,with the boughy eaves making little shadows across the rim of herbroad straw hat.

  "Who said she was ashamed?" asked Ana, with suspicious suavity. "Youhear words that have not been spoken. I tell you of your faults,_hermano mio_, because I love you!"

  Alejandro turned off in a sulk, and, leaving Ana to her own resources,went toward the place where the ponies and burros were tethered. It wascomparatively lonely here, and Alejandro began to make friends with adisconsolate burro who was bewailing his fate in a series of lamentablesounds.

  "Ha, _bribon!_" he said, pinching the burro's ears. "What is the use ofwasting breath? _Sus, sus, amigo!_" The burro began to buck andAlejandro stepped back. As he did so he saw approaching him from behindthe wagons a man in tattered garments, with a hat dragged over hiseyes, and a great mass of furzy yellow beard.

  "Here, you!" said this person. "Oh, you're Mexican! _Ya lo veo_--"

  "'I HOPED YOU'D BE ABLE TO LEND ME A HAND.'"]

  "Me, I spik English all ri'!" retorted Alejandro, with dignity. "SpikEnglish if you want. I it onnerstan'."

  "I see. Well, look here!" He withdrew a folded paper from his pocket."I want you to take this note over to that lady in the gray dress inthe pavilion. _Sabe_ 'pavilion'? All right! Don't let any one else seeit. Just hand it to her quietly and tell her the gentleman's waiting."

  Alejandro took the note reluctantly. Why should he put himself at thebehest of this _vagabundo_ who impeached his English? The man, however,had an eye on him. It was an eye which Alejandro felt to be impelling.He decided to take the note to the lady in gray.

  Jane, as Alejandro smuggled the paper into her hand, caught a glimpseof the writing and felt her heart sink. Lola and Edith May Jonas werewhispering together. They had not noticed Alejandro.

  "The man is waiting," said the boy, in her ear.

  Jane touched Lola. "Keep my seat, dear," she said. "Some one wants tospeak to me." And she followed Alejandro across the field.

  Alejandro's _vagabundo_ came forward to meet her with an air of lightcordiality. His voice was the voice which had greeted her first fromthe steps of the prairie-schooner in which Lola's mother lay dead.

  "It's me!" conceded Mr. Keene, pleasantly. "In rather poor shape, asyou see. It's always darkest before dawn! You're considerable changed,ma'am--and to the better. I would hardly have known you. Is that girlin the big white hat Lola? Well, well! Now, ma'am I'll tell you why I'mhere."

  He proceeded to speak of an opportunity of immediate fortune which wasopen to him, after prolonged disaster, if only the sum of five hundreddollars might be forthcoming. A friend of his in Pony Gulch had senthim glowing reports of the region. "All I want is a grub-stake," saidMr. Keene, "and I'm sure to win!"

  "I haven't that much money in the world!" said Jane.

  Keene sighed. "Well, I hoped you'd be able to lend me a hand, but ifyou can't, you can't! There seems to be nothing for me but to go backNorth, and try to earn something to start on. I guess it'd be well forme to take Lola along. She's nearly grown now, and they need help theworst kind in the miners' boarding-house where I stay up in Cripple. Itold the folks that keep it--I owe 'em considerable--that I'd bringback my daughter with me to assist 'em in the dining-room, and theysaid all right, that'd suit 'em. Wages up there are about the highestthing in sight. Equal to the altitude. And it'll give me a chance tolook round."

  Jane was staring at him. "You would do that?" she breathed. "You'd takethat delicate girl up there to wait on a lot of rough miners? I'veworked for her and loved her and sheltered her from everything! She'snot fit for any such life! She sha'n't go!"

  Keene had been touched at first. At Jane's last assertion, however, hebegan to look sulky.

  "Well, I guess it's for me to say what she shall do!" he signified. "Iguess it's not against the law or the prophets for a daughter to assisther father when he's in difficulties. And Lola'll recognize her duty.I'll just go over yonder to the pavilion, ma'am, and see what shesays."

  DESTINY PRESSES
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