© 2012 by Grace Livingston Hill
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-657-8
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-076-7
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-077-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
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Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
Chapter 1
1920s
Eastern United States
Gregory Sterling rode slowly out of town toward his little shack among the hills. He had just come from signing the papers that gave over to the Blue Star Production Company full right and title to the land for which he had grubbed and starved and fought and almost died. He was going back to pack up and leave.
Ten years before, a mere lad with a sore heart and a great determination, Greg had come to the Far West and taken up land, worked hard, and raised a few cattle, striving against great odds year after year. Now suddenly within the last few months, a rich yield of oil had been discovered, and the land that had been so hard to subdue had become worth millions. Actually millions!
Greg said it softly over to himself when he was out on the desert alone: “I’m clearing out! I’m going back east. I’m going home wealthy, just as I said I would!”
He set his grim young lips, gazed wistfully off toward the purple heights of the distant mountains, and sighed.
“But it won’t be home,” he added. “Not with Mother gone. There’ll be nobody there I care about. Nobody left! Not even little Alice Blair!”
He was silent again, reflecting on how his mother had hated to have him going with Alice Blair. And then Alice Blair had run away with Murky Powers. Well, that was that! There wouldn’t even be Alice.
He half closed his eyes and tried to visualize Alice as she had been, a little pink and white and golden wisp of a thing with big blue eyes. Impudent eyes, his mother had called them. He hadn’t thought of her for several years now. He had been grimly set on making a living. And now, before he could have dreamed it possible, while he was still young enough to enjoy it, his fortune had come to him without any effort of his own!
He had never expected this thing. The utmost he had hoped when he first came out to these wilds had been the right to do as he pleased, to hide his stricken young life after the death of his mother, to hide away from people who thought they were elected to manage him, and earn a meager living through hard, daily toil.
Then suddenly in a night he was rich! He was going back! Back to the place where they wouldn’t lend him twenty dollars to start a newsstand down near the station. Back where they wanted him to be apprenticed to learn a trade.
He threw his head back and let out his triumph in a bitter laugh, the lightest that had passed his lips since his mother died and left him, a seventeen-year-old boy, with everybody trying to boss him. Well, now he could buy any house in town, pay twenty dollars for a single newspaper if he chose. Rich!
He laughed again that astonished, mirthless laugh, as if it were somehow a joke on himself.
The thin, old rackabones of a horse he was riding heard that unaccountable laughter, threw his head back in astonishment, and gave a swish to his bobbed tail and a canter or two to express his interest. A squirrel whisked up into a tree and dropped the nut he had been so deftly manipulating, turning his head from side to side, taking in this most phenomenal sound on the wide open spaces. Guns he knew with their whistle of death; swearing he knew, and drunken calls; raucous singing he had heard at nighttime when cattlemen were riding home from a brawl. But this strange, uncertain sound of mirth without joy was new, and there was a desperate wistfulness in it that even a wild creature would sense.
All the way back those monotonous miles to his shack, Greg was staring ahead, not at the desert before him, but at his new life, trying to find a gleam. It must be going to be wonderful, but he felt dazed when he should have been thrilled. He had been thinking so long in terms of cattle and feed and the land and the bare necessities of life that his brain and imagination were numb. He could not seem to grasp the possibilities that were his.
He began to visualize his cabin on the mountain. A rude structure of logs and boards that he had built with his own eager, inexperienced hands; a strong door, three small windows with wooden shutters. A sheet iron stove of ancient make, a cupboard with some tin dishes, salt pork, the end of a loaf of bread, a table against one wall made of a packing box. Two other boxes for seats, an army cot with gray blankets, and an old decrepit couch of the kind known as a “sofa,” that he had bought from a settler about to move. Its decrepit springs were bursting forth like fallen soldiers from the old Brussels carpet covering, faded and long since worn beyond all thought of its original pattern.
“Sometime when I’m wealthy, I’ll get you a new cover.” He had promised it again and again when he had stretched his weary form upon its humpy, inadequate dimensions. Well, now he was wealthy enough to buy him a new couch with great, deep leather cushions to build him a palace and furnish it throughout, and yet he found his heart turning wistfully toward a new cover for that poor old couch, the only real longing he had allowed himself during these barren years. He felt shy about going out into the world and hunting luxury for himself. In fact, he had no standards of luxury. All he really longed for was home and somebody to care. His childhood home had been plain and simple, but it had been full of love, and it was home. And you couldn’t buy home!
He had meant to build a fireplace someday in his shack, out of native cobblestones, and spread his big bear rug, the first trophy of his western prowess, before it. Draw up the couch with its bright new cover, sit and stare into the leaping flames as they bit into a great burning log, and heal his broken young heart. Now in his thoughts, the couch seemed to rise in reproach at him as he rode along. He had sold it, couch, cabin, possibilities, and all, and was going away forever!
He had planned to bring water down from the mountain spring above his shack and install a rude water system, to plant a garden with vegetables and maybe a few of the flowers his mother used to love, just for remembrance, someday when he got time. He had meant to make the mountainside lovely, too, and his dreams had even included a better dwelling there someday. But now that could never be. He had sold it all, and before long ugly, disfiguring oil wells would spring up everywhere over his hillside site that he had selected so carefully.
Well, he was rich anyway, and there wasn’t a soul to miss him. He had gone alone these ten long years, eaten and slept alone much of the time except for a few months when old Luke was with him, Luke a wanderer on the face of the earth dropping down for a little while, helping him work. But poor Luke was gone. Killed in a drunken brawl.
Even the dog that had companioned with him during the first few years of his exile had been wounded so badly by a wild steer one day that he had to be shot. There wasn’t even a dog to care that he was leaving. No one out there in the West to care that he was not coming back.
The moon was shining when he reached his shack. He could see its silver light on the opposite hillside. His eye lingered on the wide expanse of sky; the purple mountains; the dark, plumy woods; the river winding like a silver thread in the valley. Would he someday be homesick for all this quietness as he had longed for his home when he came out here?
Off there to the right was where the sun rose, bursting through bars of crimson. Off there to the left was where it set, leaving tatters of purple and gold behind it. And there by the top of that tallest tree was the spot he watched when a storm was coming up and the tops of the tall pines bent with the wind. He sighed deeply and turned to his horse, touching the soft, old nose with a lingering caress like a farewell. The horse was sold, too.
When he went into the cabin, he lighted his smoky oil lamp and looked around. There wouldn’t be much to take with him. There were a few pelts fastened to the wall, skins of animals he had shot or trapped. His gun—he would have little need of that now.
He ate his supper and went to bed listening to the silence outside his cabin, wondering what the new life was going to be like.
It was a little past noon when he finished his packing and cleaning, for he took a certain pride in leaving everything immaculate. On the saddle were fastened two bundles, one sewed into an old piece of burlap bag, to be forwarded to himself in his hometown, the other crudely wrapped in newspaper containing a few necessities that he was taking with him. He had discarded most of his wardrobe. There was not much that would belong in his new life.
When he reached the settlement town and left the bony, old horse with his new owner, he found an uneasy regret in his heart at parting from him. And when he bought his ticket, he stuffed it into his pocket with a strange distaste. He had a passing wonder why he had consented to sell his place and be shoved out again into the world when he was just getting a foothold here and nobody out in the world wanted him. For just that instant, if the Blue Star Company had offered to sell his place back to him, almost he would have been tempted to accept. Then he turned upon himself savagely and told himself he was childish and walked away down the platform to Jake’s Place, where one could get a good dinner of liver and onions and baked beans with dried-apple pie for fifty cents. But somehow he didn’t feel like eating when he looked in the window. The pie looked tired, and there was a smell of burned fat in the air.
He walked back to the little station again and stood looking off down the track that gleamed red as two streaks of blood in the low rays of the setting sun. And presently out of the dazzle of it, the train appeared, a dark speck, growing larger momentarily and bearing down upon him.
An unanticipated shyness came upon him. A bear he had met, wild cattle in a stampede, a gun pointing into his face, the threatening angry growl of a group that outnumbered him, all without the slightest quiver. But that oncoming train that would carry him back into a world of civilization brought a strange panic upon him. He waited while a bundle of papers and a mail pouch were thrown off and a salesman’s case of samples and a trunk were put on. Then just as the conductor waved his signal to the engineer and the first slow revolution of the wheels began, he gravely stepped forward and swung himself aboard the lowest step, his newspaper bundle under his arm, and quite casually rode out of town into the great world.
Cautiously he opened the door of a Pullman and glanced inside. Here at once was a foreign atmosphere. Men and women of another world. Obviously he did not belong here. Swift as the vision of Adam and Eve after they ate the apple came the knowledge to him that his apparel was not right.
The porter approached him hastily from the other end of the car as if he were a stray dog wandered in, to be hustled out as soon as possible.
“Common cah up the othah end of the train!” he said in an unmistakable tone of authority.
Gregory stiffened and lifted his chin haughtily. Here again was that same spirit of class distinction from which he had run away when he came west. He had not expected to meet it again at the first step of the way. He made a mental resolve that his wealth should never make him feel superior to his fellow mortals.
He looked the porter in the eye for an instant and then turned and stalked in the direction indicated, through another parlor car, a club car and diner, on up through several common cars. He dropped finally into a vacant seat, and settling down close to the window, gave himself to watching the sunset, as much as he could see of it reflected in the clouds ahead of the train. Splendid flocks of pinks and blues and delicate pearly grays, like sheep being herded into the oncoming night.
Now and then the train took a slight turn, and he could look directly into the west where were heaped up masses of velvety purple and midnight blue, rent here and there with heavy gold in ragged splashes.
Back there on his old hillside that mingled glory light would be still shining on the home he had left, touching with splendor his rude shack, laying bright hands on the far pile of stones that marked old Luke’s grave, sailing silverly down the river in the valley.
As long as the display lasted, he gave undivided attention to his window, until night pulled the curtain of twilight definitely down and pinned it with a star.
He sat with his head leaning against the cold window pane, looking into the night. And presently he became aware of voices purposely raised across the aisle, four girls in a double seat. They were discussing his clothes, and Greg’s anger arose again. Couldn’t one wear what one pleased in this world?
Greg hadn’t given much thought to what he should wear. Indeed, he had little choice. Out there in his wilderness home, it seemed to matter very little. He was wearing khaki breeches stuffed into heavy boots and belted with a cartridge belt over a flannel shirt of butternut brown. His short coat of khaki color was lined and furred with sheepskin. His hat was a soft, wide-brimmed, weathered felt, and although he did not know it, he made a picturesque figure sitting like a bronze statue against the brilliant, changing sky.
As the girls’ voices rose, he turned and looked at them. He had scarcely noticed them when he sat down. They were brightly dressed—cheaply, too—although he did not know that, and their faces were startling in their makeup. When Gregory came west, nice girls didn’t paint their faces. Even indecent ones did not go to such an extreme as these girls. They looked to him like the girls who came at intervals to Jake’s Place and gave a show, and then danced and drank afterward with the clamoring cowboys who flocked to meet them. He had never cared much for that sort of thing. He had been too busy fighting for his land, too young when he first came west to feel the urge toward such brawls, and later too much in the habits of his hermitage to venture forth for an all-night party. Perhaps, too, the lingering memory of the clean, simple atmosphere with which his mother had surrounded his boyhood days was a strong element in protecting his life from such temptations.
So now as he turned a grave glance toward the three highly illuminated faces and took note of the impudent, intimate challenge of their lawless eyes, he judged them young women of no reputation and met their look with one of half-pitying contempt. He would have been surprised to know that they were simply common, ill-bred, hardworking girls out to have a good time and eager to imitate a brazen modern world whose glamour lured their souls.
The one in red began to laugh and suddenly addressed him mockingly: “Why n’t ya buy ya a haircut, buddie?” she called across to him. “It would improve ya a lot.”
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br /> Greg eyed her gravely an instant and then replied in a careless drawl:
“Thanks a lot! I was just thinking how much you girls needed a good face wash!”
Then he slowly straightened up, rose to his full height, and turned his gaze down the car. He made a really stunning figure, and the girls, catching their breath at his audacity, suddenly broke into embarrassed laughter mixed with a note of hilarity. But Greg did not look their way again. He picked up his paper bundle and walked slowly away from them down the aisle and out the car door.
Back through the other common cars he went, looking to neither right nor left, through club car and diner and Pullmans, studying the numbers of the cars as he made his slow progress, till at last he found the number he was looking for. As he paused beside it, the porter whom he had at first encountered came hurrying nervously toward him from the rear end of the car.
Greg eyed him amusedly as he puffed up assertively and seemed about to speak. Then he said in his slow, pleasant drawl: “Sorry to disturb you, brother, but this seems to be my seat,” and he handed out the magic bit of green paper that gave him right to that place and sat down.
The porter eyed him incredulously, studied the ticket a moment, and then looked at him sharply.
“Where’d you-all get this ticket? This yours?”
“Back there at the station where I got on,” said Greg, still in that calm, half-amused tone. “Isn’t it all right?” and he handed out a bill that made the porter stare and melt into smiles.
“Oh, yessah, yessah! It’s all right, sah! I wasn’t just shore where at this party was comin’ on, sah. Any bags, sah?” and he eyed Greg’s newspaper bundle questioningly.
“No bags!” said Greg, grinning and stowing his parcel beside him.
The poor, bewildered porter went on his way, staring down at the greenback and casting furtive glances around at the other passengers. And then, entrenched behind his own special narrow sanctum at the end of the car, he peered out and studied this strange, crude-looking passenger who dressed like a common workman and threw ten dollar bills around so casually.
THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE Page 1
