A Prairie Infanta

by Eva Wilder Brodhead

  CHAPTER SIX

  BEWILDERING SATISFACTION

  Lola found herself walking up the canyon, between the rocky hills besidethe dry _arroyo_. Summer dust whitened the road, and rose to her treadin alkaline clouds. It was warm, too, under the remorseless Coloradosun, but nothing touched Lola. She was struggling with a thing that washalf anguish and half anger, and that lifted upon her a face more andmore convincing in its ugliness.

  It seemed impossible to doubt that Jane had indeed worked the wrong ofwhich Senora Vigil accused her--although Jane's own word, and no wordof the senora's, bore this conviction to Lola's breast. Jane hadfaltered in the trust which she had assumed, and now, confronted withthe embarrassment of facing Lola's father in a plain confession of herdelinquency, she hesitated and was miserable and afraid and reluctant.Rather than state her situation she would even keep Lola from school.

  "It isn't that I care for that!" throbbed Lola. It was not the stoppageof her own course, indeed, although this was a misery, but the loss oftrust in all humanity which distrust of Jane seemed to the girl toinflict upon her. If Jane were not true, none could be; and thesuspicion and unrest rioted back again to the bosom which belief inJane and the world had softened and calmed.

  There was nothing to do. Lola's father could easily repair Jane'sshortcoming, but not without having an explanation of the facts of thecase. The facts of the case he must never know. Even in her pain andindignation, Lola never made a question of this.

  "Suppose it is true!" thought the girl, suddenly overcome by a new tideof feeling. "What am I blaming her for? She would never have fixed thehouse or bought things for herself! She did it all for me. And althoughI would rather have gone to school than have the piano, am I to blame_tia_ for not knowing this? She never thought where she was coming out.She just went on and on. And now that there is no more money, she isfrightened and sorry and ashamed. She has done everything for me--evenherself she has fairly made over to please me. Poor _tia_! Oh,ungrateful that I am to have been thinking unkindly of her!"

  Suddenly all the bitterness left her, like an evil thing exorcised bythe first word of pitying tenderness. Tears stole sweetly to her eyes.Peace came upon her shaken spirit. The day had been full of strangerevelations; and now it showed her how good for the human heart it isto be able to pity weakness, to love, to forbear and to forgive.

  In the strange peacefulness which brooded over her she walked homebetween the pinon-sprinkled hills, where doves were crooning and thefar bleating of an upland herd echoed among the barren ridges. Shereflected quietly upon meeting Jane without a hint of any shadow in herface, but in such sunniness of humor as should gladden and reassure.And Jane would never dream of the dark hour which had visited herchild. She would never know that any slightest thought, unnurtured inaffection, had risen to cast between them the least passing shadow;although from Lola's heart might never pass away that little,inevitable sense of loss which those know whose love survives arevelation of weakness in one believed to be strong.

  As she came in sight of the hollow roof of the Dauntless she saw thedoctor riding toward her.

  "Hello!" he said. "What have you been doing up the canyon? BuildingSpanish castles?"

  "Watching Spanish castles fall," said Lola, smiling. "What would youdo," she went on lightly, "if you had planned something worth while,and it became impossible?"

  The doctor looked down at her young, questioning face. It was grave,although she spoke gaily, and looked so mere a slip of girlhood withher brown throat and cheek and lifted black-lashed eyes.

  Unexpectedly the doctor remembered when he, too, had meant to do thingsthat should be "worth while." He thought of Berlin and Vienna andParis, and the clinics where he had meant to acquire such skill as,aiding his zeal, should write him among the first physicians of hisday. And here he was, practising among a few Mexicans and miners,tending their bruises, doling them out quinine, and taking pay of adollar a month from every man, sick or well, enrolled on the minebooks, and frequently getting nothing at all from such as were nottherein enrolled. Never a volume of his had startled the world ofscience. Surgery was bare of his exploits. Medical annals knew him not.All he had thought to do was undone by him; and yet here he was,contented, happy and healthy in a realm of little duties. In sounpretentious a life as this he had found satisfaction; and for thefirst time it came upon him that thus simply and calmly satisfactioncomes to the great mass of men who have nothing to do with glory orhope of glory.

  "When great things become impossible, what would you do?" said Lola,tossing back her long, braided hair.

  "I would do little things," said the doctor, with whimsical soberness.

  An unusual equipage was turning in from the Trinidad road--an equipageon which leather and varnish shone, and harness brasses flashed, whilethe dust rolled pompously after it in a freakish fantasy of postilionsand outriders. The driver made a great business of his long whip. Thehorses were sleek and brown. Altogether the vehicle had a lordly air,easily matching that of the individual sitting alone on the purplecushions--a man whose features were not very clear at the distance,although the yellowness of his beard, the glitter of his studdedshirt-front, and whole consequential, expansive effect recalled to thedoctor's mind an image of the past, less ornate, indeed, and affluent,but of similar aspect. He narrowed his eyes, staring townward overLola's head, and wondering if yonder princely personage might not invery truth be Lola's father.

  But the girl's eyes were bent upon the ground. She did not see theequipage or the man on the purple cushions.

  "You do little things?" she said, raising her eyes gravely to thedoctor's. He had always seemed to her the man who did great things. "Iwill try," she added, seriously.

  While she talked with the doctor the world seemed to Lola a pleasantplace, with a golden light on its long levels and a purple glamour onits hills. And after he had left her, she went with a light heart downthe unpaved street that she had lately traversed in unseeingbitterness. The very hum of the mine cars was full of good cheer;children splashed joyously in the ditch; magpies gossiped; theblacksmith-shop rang with a merry din of steel.

  Set emerald-like in the yellow circle of the prairies, the green youngcottonwood grove about Jane's house shone fresh and vivid. At the whitegate a carriage waited--a strange carriage which Lola scrutinizedwonderingly as she approached. With delighted eyes she noted thepurple cushions and the satin coats of the horses. Who could havecome? Whose voice was that which issued from the house in an unbrokenmonologue, genial, laughing, breathless?

  Suddenly, as she mounted the porch steps, a persuasion of familiarityin those light accents overcame her. Could it be that her father hadcome at last? That, after all her waiting, she was to see him and talkwith him and sob out on his breast her appreciation of his long laborsin her behalf, his kindness, unselfishness and goodness?

  She forgot that she had sometimes been hurt at his silence and absence.Her childhood swam before her; she recalled the sweetness of hermother's face, and in that memory he who awaited her in Jane'ssitting-room gathered a graciousness which exalted him, as if he, too,had been dead and was alive again.

  The talk broke off at her impetuous entrance. Upon a chair sat a manwith a round and ruddy face, with bright blue eyes and a curling spreadof yellow beard. Lola hesitated. She doubted if this richly arrayed,somewhat stout man could be the slim, boyish-looking father sheremembered. Then the unalterable joyousness of his glance reassuredher, and she rushed forward crying, "Oh, it's you! It's you!"

  She had not noticed Jane, who sat opposite, mute and relaxed, like onein whom hope and resolution flag and fail; but Jane's deep eyesfollowed Lola's swift motion, and her look changed a little at thegirl's air of eager joy. As she saw Lola fling herself upon his breastand cling there, she winced, and her heart yearned at the sight of alove which she had somehow failed to win with all her efforts, andwhich now she should never win, since Lola was about to leave herforever.

  The hour so long dreaded by Jane seemed surely to h
ave come atlast--the hour of her child's departure. Forth to life's best andbrightest Lola would go, as was meet. Happiness illimitable awaited thegirl she had cherished. It was right that this should be so; yet, alasfor the vast void gray of the empty heart which Lola would leavebehind!

  "Well, this is a kind of surprise!" said Mr. Keene, holding hisdaughter away for a better sight of her radiant face. "You are tallerthan I expected. She's got real Spanish eyes, aint she, Miss Combs?Like her mother's. The Keenes are all sandy. I'm not sure I'd haveknown you, Lola."

  "Oh, papa, you've been away so long! You've been kind and good tome--yet--"

  "We'll have to let bygones be bygones," declared her father, gratifiedto learn that she had thought him good and kind--for this point hadrather worried him. "I've felt at times as if I hadn't done you justright."

  "Don't say so, papa!"

  "Well, I won't," agreed Mr. Keene, willingly. "Only I'm glad to findyou haven't cherished anything against me for leaving you like I did.When I persuaded Miss Jane to take you, I couldn't foresee what hardluck I was going to strike, could I?" As he paused he caught Jane's eyeupon him in a significance which he did not understand.

  "She doesn't know," said Jane, in a sort of whisper, indicating Lola,whose back was toward her.

  "Doesn't know what?" asked Mr. Keene, unwitting and bewildered. "Ofcourse she doesn't know all I suffered, what with taking up oneworthless claim after another month in and out--if you mean that! Why,I actually thought one time of giving up prospecting and settling downto day's work! Yes'm! It was sure enough that grub-stake you gave melast Fourth of July that brought me my first luck! I put it right intoPony Gulch and my pick struck free-milling ore the first blow! Some ofthe stuff runs ninety dollars to the ton and some higher. I've alreadyhad good offers for my claim from an English syndicate, but I haven'tdecided to sell. Seems queer it should be such a little while ago thatI called you out of that pavilion, Miss Jane, and told you what a fix Iwas in! You remember you said you hadn't the money--and then afterwardyou turned in, real friendly, and raised me what I needed."

  Lola exclaimed, "You were here in town on the Fourth of July? O papa!Why didn't I see you? Oh--what--"

  "You came near enough to seeing me," laughed Mr. Keene, "and to goingaway with me, too! I'm glad things happened like they did. Thatboarding-house was no place for you, Lola. I realize it now! But I waspushed to the wall. But for Miss Jane's helping me out, I'd have had totake you away, sure enough! She told you, didn't she?"

  "Told me? Told me what?"

  "Why, about my idea of getting you that situation up in Cripple? Theyneeded help bad up in the boarding-house where I lived, and I'd made'em a promise to fetch you. It was easy work in the dining-room, andright good pay."

  "And--and--_tia_ fixed it--so--you decided to leave me here?"

  "That's what she did! I'm mighty glad of it, too, for I see you're notcut out for any such work. I'm not forgetting what I owe Miss Jane.She's been a good friend to us both. I was sorry to hear down inTrinidad about your mortgaging your house that time, Miss Combs. Yes,I'm downright ashamed to think I've let you pay me month by month forLola's services, when really you were out of pocket for her schoolingand all. But I didn't realize how things were, and now we'll levelthings up."

  "My services!" Lola sprang to her feet. Everything was clear enoughnow. No need to summon charity for Jane's shortcomings! No need tooverlook, to palliate, to forgive! Jane's fault had been merely toolavish a generosity, too large a love. There had been no question withher of property. She had simply given everything she had to a forsaken,ungrateful child--home, food, raiment, schooling.

  These were the facts. The flood of unutterable feeling which swept overLola as the knowledge of it all flashed upon her was something deeperthan thought, something more moving than any mere matter of perception.A passionate gratitude throbbed in her heart, confused with apassionate self-reproach. She desired to speak, but somehow her lipsrefused utterance. She trembled and turned white, and stood wringingher hands.

  "I was always a generous man," said Mr. Keene, lost to his daughter'slooks in pleasant introspection, "and I mean to do right by you, MissCombs. You'll find I'm not ungrateful. Lola'll always write to you,too, wherever we are. I'm thinking some of Paris. How'd that suit you,Lola? A person can pick up a mighty good time over there, they say. Andbonnets--how many bonnets can you manage, Lola? Why, she looks kind ofstunned, don't she, Miss Combs?"

  Jane was gazing at the girl. She knew well with what force the blow solong averted had fallen at last. In her own breast she seemed to feelthe pain with which Lola had received her father's revelations.

  "Lola," she cried, leaning forward, "don't feel so, my lamb! I'm sorryyou had to know this. I tried hard to keep it from you. But it's allout now, and you must try to bear it. Your father don't realize--hehasn't meant to hurt you. He's fond of you, dearie. And he's going totake you to foreign lands, and you can see all the great pictures andstatues, and have a chance to learn all the things you spokeof--designing and such. Don't look so, my child!"

  Mr. Keene began to feel highly uncomfortable. Evidently, in his ownphrase, he had "put his foot into it;" he had said too much. He haddisclosed fallacies in himself of which Lola, it seemed, knew nothing.And now Lola, who had received him with such flattering warmth, wasturning her face away and looking strange and stern and stricken.

  Nor did Miss Combs seem fairly to have grasped the liberality of hisintentions. She, too, had a curious air of not being exalted in any wayby so much good fortune. She appeared to be engaged solely in trying toreconcile Lola to a situation which Mr. Keene considered dazzling.

  Altogether it was very disturbing, especially to a man who did notunderstand what he had done to bring about so unpleasant a turn. Hewas about to ask some explanation, when Lola said slowly, "And you,_tia_, you have done so much for me that you have nothing left? Is thatso?"

  "I don't need much, Lola. I'll be all right. Don't you worry."

  "You won't mind living here alone and poor?"

  "She won't be poor, Lola," interpolated Mr. Keene. "Haven't I said so?And you can come and see her, you know. Everything will come out allright."

  Lola turned a little toward him, and he was glad to see that her eyeswere soft and gentle and that the stern look had disappeared. "Yes,"she said, "it will come out all right for tia, because I shall be hereto see that it does."

  She caught her breath and added, "You couldn't think I should bewilling to go away and leave her like this? Even if I hadn't heard howmuch more she has done for me than I dreamed? For I have been ignoranttill now of many things; but I shouldn't have forgotten that she lovedme and had reared me and cared for me when there was no one else. No,father, no! And now that you have let me find out what I owe her, doyou think I sha'n't remember it always with every beat of my heart? Oh,yes--although I can never repay her for all she has suffered in keepingme from knowing things which would have hurt me too much when I waslittle and--and could not make allowances--as I can now. My home ishere. My heart is here, father. You must let me stay!"

  She had taken Jane's hand and was holding it closely--that happy handwhich for very blessedness and amazement trembled more than her own.And so holding it, she cried, "_Tia_, you want me to stay, don't you?Say yes! Tell him I may stay! It is my home where you are. And oh, howdifferent I will be!"

  Jane, listening, could only press those slender, clinging fingers inspeechless comfort, and look up silently into the imploring eyes of herchild--eyes filled with tears and love. A moment of silence ensued.Then, clearing his throat suddenly, Mr. Keene rose and walked to thewindow.

  "Lola," he said presently, turning to face the two others, "I don'tblame you one bit. Miss Jane's done a heap more for you than I had anynotion. 'Tisn't only that she's done all you say, but she's raised youto be a girl I'm proud of--a right-minded, right-hearted girl. I neverthought how it would look for you to be willing to rush off at thefirst word and leave behind you the person you owed most to in theworld
! But I'm free to say I wouldn't have liked it when I come tothink of it. I wouldn't have felt proud of you like I do now. Knockingaround the foot-hills has shaken me up pretty well, but I know what'sright as well as any man. There's things in my life I'd like to forget;but they say it's never too late to mend. And I have hopes of myselfwhen I see what a noble girl my daughter's turned out."

  "'TIA, YOU ARE A LADY OF FORTUNE!'"]

  He put his handkerchief away and came and stood before them, adding, "Ihaven't had a chance to finish my other story. When Miss Jane gave methat grub-stake she didn't know, I reckon, that half of anything Imight strike would belong to her--that in law, grub-stakes always meanshalves! But I never had any intention of not dealing fair and square.So when I said she wasn't going to be poor, I meant it! For half 'theLittle Lola' belongs to her. And if she's willing, I'll just run themine for the next year or so, and after that we can talk abouttraveling."

  Mr. Keene, during the past hour, had been made sensible of certaindeficiencies in himself. No one had accused him or reproached him, yethe felt chagrined as he saw his own conduct forcibly contrasted withthe conduct of a different sort. But now, as his daughter sent abeaming glance toward him, his spirits rose again, and he began oncemore to regard himself hopefully, as a man who, despite some failings,was honest in the main, and generous and well-meaning.

  "Oh, how glad I am!" said Lola. "_Tia, tia_, do you hear? You are alady of fortune and must have a velvet gown! And, oh, _tia_, a tall,silver comb in your hair!" She dropped a sudden kiss down upon thesmooth, brown bands, and added in a deeper tone, "But nothing, nothing,can make you better or dearer!"

  Jane smiled uncertainly as if she were in a dream. Could thisunlooked-for, bewildering satisfaction be indeed real, and not avisionary thing which would presently fade? She looked about. Therewas actuality in the scene. The cottonwoods rustled crisply, AlejandroVigil was calling to his dog, and the tinkle of his herd stole softlyupon her ear. The great hills rose majestic as of old upon the gloriouswestern sky; the plains stretched off in silvery, sea-like waves to thevery verge of the world. And hard by many a familiar thing spoke of apast which she knew; pots of geraniums, muslin shades and open piano.There, too, was Mr. Keene, sitting at ease in his chair; there wasLola, bending over her in smiling reassurance. And finally, there wasTesuque himself regarding her from his shelf in an Olympian calm whichno merely mortal emotion could touch or stir. Tesuque's little bowl wasstill empty, but in his adobe glance Jane suddenly grew aware how trulyher own cup overflowed.

  [THE END]

  A PRAIRIE INFANTA

  By EVA WILDEER BRODHEAD

  A clever Western story that develops in a little Colorado mining town.One is made to see the green, tall cottonwoods, the stragglingmud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its people, among whom lived thewoman who took to her great heart the motherless Lola.

  The tropical brilliancy of the girl, by reason of her red frock and thered ribbons in her hair, excites the jealousy of the little Mexicansand the paler children from the mining end of the town, and in theirdisapproval they style her "Infanta." The story of the girl's life ischarmingly told, and eventually, her father, a man who, despite somefailings, is generous and well-meaning, reappears in the character of awealthy mine owner, and brings the story to an unlooked for and happytermination.

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  WITCHERY WAYS

  By AMOS R. WELLS

  PICTURES BY L. J. BRIDGMAN

  Children may well be grateful to the forgotten people who, long ago,first invented fairy tales. Mr. Wells confesses, in the preface to thisbook, that he has a very tender regard for the "Little People," asfairies used to be called in those days, and now he has given us, underthe title of "Witchery Ways," some fairy tales of his own which willprove a never-ending delight to every reader.

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  SONNY BOY

  By SOPHIE SWETT

  Sonny Boy was ten years old. His name was Peter, but his mother thoughtthat too large a name for a small boy.

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  A GOURD FIDDLE

  By GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE

  A little colored boy, the sole orphaned remainder of a long line ofmasters of the violin, alone of the army of negroes who had borne thefamily name, is left to wait upon the old mistress and Miss Patrice atthe "Great House."

  Miss Patrice teaches Orphy to sing the chants and anthems in theservice of the little church where he was baptized, and with her voicenew airs for his violin. Plantation songs he knew and rendered with apleasing coloring.

  After the death of his teacher Orphy falls upon hard times, buteventually his talent is recognized by a professor of music who takeshim to Europe, and there, under peculiar circumstances, he plays on hishome-made gourd fiddle before no less a personage than Her Majesty,Queen Victoria.

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  BUMPER AND BABY JOHN

  By ANNA CHAPIN RAY

  PICTURES BY CURTIS WAGER-SMITH

  An irresistibly humorous relation of the haps and mishaps of thehomeliest, yet most dependable dog in the world, and a delightfulred-haired and freckled child, whose united ages did not exceed sevenyears.

  But apart from the humor of the book, it is alive with human interest,and there is pathos as well. And this is not to forget the artist inpraise of the author; the illustrations could not have been confided toa better hand.

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  A LITTLE ROUGH RIDER

  By TUDOR JENKS

  Author of "Galopoff, the Talking Pony," "Gypsy, the Talking Dog," etc.

  PICTURES BY REGINALD B. BIRCH

  Under the title of "A Little Rough Rider" the author tells the story ofa little girl, who, as Senorita Finette, the _equestrienne_, saved thefortunes of a circus during the early years of the gold-fever inCalifornia. Her charming feats on the back of her trained horse,Blanco, win fame and fortune for herself as well, the latter beingaugmented later by the discovery of gold on certain lands.

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  * * * * *

  Transcriber's Notes

  Page 43: Changed Sanish to Spanish: (who knew Sanish best, being a bronco from the south).