by Zane Grey
“Boyd didn’t like it for a cent. . . . I’ll tell you, Mary, on the level I haven’t any use for Bid Hatfield except to string him along. He’s so darned stuck on himself. These Tonto dames have spoiled him, believe me.”
“Was Cal there?”
“He rode in on horseback,” replied Georgiana, with subtle change of tone. “He got there late. I was teaching some of the boys and girls how to toddle. Cal saw us—and he beat it pronto. What do you know about that?”
“I know a good deal, Georgie dear,” replied Mary, earnestly. “Suppose we have a long talk, not about Cal particularly, but about everything.”
“O Lord! Now you’re going to hop me again,” cried Georgiana. “Mary, I had enough of that back home. Mother was always after me—raving at me because I couldn’t be like she used to be. She couldn’t understand. Dad couldn’t, either. None of the girls’ parents could see that we are different. Times have changed. We won’t be bossed. We’re going to do what we want to do—and what we want makes all the old folks sick. Good night! That’s one reason I was crazy to come out West.—Mary, you were just wonderful at first. You seemed to sympathize, and even if you wouldn’t stand for something or other you didn’t rave about it. But lately you’ve been getting after me.”
Miss Stockwell pondered a moment, while gazing down upon this rebellious little sister. She understood at last that Georgiana could never be driven. Such opposition invited disaster. Some other way must be found to influence her, if that were possible.
“No, dear, I’m not going to get after you again, as you call it,” said Mary, kindly. “But as we are going to live together and I’m going to take care of you till you are well and strong—isn’t it fair that we have talks—understand each other’s point of view?”
“Sure it is. I’ll try. But I’m only a kid, and—and I’m going to raise—to have a good time or die. I’ll be young only once. Can you understand that?”
“I think so,” replied Mary, weighing her words. “It’s youth. I had a feeling something like it when I was seventeen, enough for me to realize what you mean. But your attitude toward life is an exaggeration of that feeling. But you’re not a fool, Georgie.”
“No, it’s because I’m wise that the old bunk doesn’t go with me,” replied the girl.
“By bunk do you mean religion, education, refinement, love, and marriage, as they used to be?”
“No. I mean it always has been a man’s world until now,” declared Georgiana, with spirit. “Why don’t you get down to brass tacks? Your disapproval of me sifts down to just one thing—how I dress, talk, and act before men! That’s all. There isn’t any more. . . . Well, we kids have got it figured. We’re wise. We see how our sisters and mothers and grandmothers have been buncoed by the lords of creation. By men! And we’re not going to stand for it, see? We’re going to do as we damn please, and if they don’t like us they can lump us. But good night—the proof is they like us better, if they don’t know it.”
Miss Stockwell strove to hide her consternation and to apply all her wits to the following of this twentieth-century maiden. It was useless to be shocked. Emotion certainly could not help this perplexing situation. If intelligence and logic and persuasive common sense could not reach Georgiana, what could? The child was bitter. Bitter at men! It was astounding. Yet Mary had to confess the justice of some of her convictions. There was a very wide range between her philosophy and Georgiana’s. No doubt, however, was there that her sister had evolved a decided attitude toward life, and it bore the hard mark of materialism.
“Georgie, you were active in Sunday school when I left home,” said Mary, taking another tack. “Have you kept it up?”
“Do you think I’m a dead one?” flashed Georgiana. “I quit church when I was fourteen, and that was a year longer than I wanted to go. The churches are back numbers, Mary. Nobody goes anymore.”
“Perhaps that accounts for a great deal,” mused Mary. “Dawn of a godless age! . . . You are not to blame, perhaps, for losing interest in church work.”
Mary bent her grave gaze upon this petulant, passionate little sister, and pondered silently for a moment, for some inspiration. None seemed forthcoming. She was baffled. Yet if she talked naked truth, could she not approach this girl? Always she had beaten around the bush. Perhaps her own blindness was culpable.
“Very well, let’s get down to brass tacks, Georgie dear,” she said, brightly.
“Go to it,” replied Georgie, with doubt in her big eyes.
“Do you love me?”
“Why, Mary—what a question!” burst out Georgiana, in surprise. “Of course I love you.”
“Would you stay out West of your own free will?”
“You bet. At least a long, long time—and maybe always if I could cop out some nice rich rancher like Enoch. But you’ve your eagle eye on him.”
“Georgie!” protested Miss Stockwell, blushing furiously. “How dare you?”
“Oh, come off, Sis. Didn’t you say something about brass tacks? You’ve fallen for Enoch, and if you had any sense he’d be eating out of your hand—pronto. Mary, he’s a backward, slow sort of chap. He’s afraid of you—thinks you’re way above him. But he loves you and if you want him there’s nothing to it but wedding bells.”
Mary covered her hot face with her hands and strove for self-control.
“You’re a dreadful, terrible little girl,” she cried.
“Cut out the little, unless you mean size, Sister dear,” went on Georgiana. “Take it from me. I’ve seen Enoch watching you when you didn’t see him. That’s that.—Now go on.”
“Where was I? Oh yes—you acknowledged you loved me and you said you would stay out West of your own accord. Well, so far so good,” resumed Mary, gradually recovering from the break in her thought. “That means you stay indefinitely.—Now, Georgie, do you realize you’re a flirt?”
“That’s getting too personal and I won’t admit it!” replied the girl, loftily.
“No matter, you are, whether you realize it or not.—Coming back to your way of dressing, acting, talking—do you think it safe with a man like Bid Hatfield?”
“Safe!—Good night, I should say it wasn’t,” retorted Georgiana, with startling candor. “He’s a caveman. . . . But that’s why I get such a kick out of it. Then he’s a swelled-up mutt—thinks he’s a lady-killer. It makes him so easy.”
“You just denied you were a flirt,” continued Mary.
“Certainly I denied it. I can know a thing without being that, can’t I?”
“Well, if you’re so wise, as you call it, and see that Hatfield is really a dangerous young man for a girl to trifle with—and if you love your sister well enough to spare her shame and unhappiness, how do you propose to trifle and spare—at once?”
“Simple as ABC, Sister darling,” responded Georgiana, with a dazzling smile. “I’m far too wise to be alone with Hatfield, away from company. Not on a bet!—At that, I’m not afraid of the brute. I saw Tuck Merry make him crawl, and I’ll bet I could, too. But for your sake, Mary, I’ll not take any chances.”
“Georgie, you’re bewilderingly considerate,” responded Mary, trying to hide her wonder and anger at this incredible young person. At the same time she wanted to laugh. How Georgiana disposed of risks! She certainly was no fool, whatever were her weaknesses.
“There are other men like Hatfield,” went on Mary. “Because the Thurmans hate him he’s in the limelight. But there are others like him. You’ll meet them.”
“Yes. I have met a couple, and sized them up quick, believe me,” replied Georgiana, complacently.
“Very well, now let’s mention some of the young men who have not shady reputations. There’s Arizona. He worships you, but in a sort of awestruck way. You’re a wonderful creature to him. He’s not really in love with you.—Then there are Boyd Thurman and Wess and Serge and Lock, all running after you, crazy after you, but I don’t think any of them want to marry you.”
“Oh, you don’t? How very flattering!” e
xclaimed Georgiana. The words had cut her.
“These boys do not understand you, Georgie dear. They’re tremendously attracted. You’re a new species. They’re eager for your flirting. They can’t see the line you draw between flirting—and worse. They wouldn’t see it if you flashed it in their faces, which you’ll certainly have to do.”
“I’ll fool you, Sister, about none of them being serious. I’ll show you,” retorted Georgiana, with red spots in her cheeks that were natural color.
“Oh, Georgie, you’re impossible—utterly hopeless,” expostulated Mary, almost yielding to rage. “I only want to show you that you simply cannot go on trifling with these Tonto boys.”
“I’m not trifling now. I’m in dead earnest,” replied Georgiana, passionately. “And I’d like to know who’s going to stop me?”
“I don’t mean that. The trifling will stop of its own accord. You don’t understand these boys any better than they do you. To speak bluntly—they believe you are cheap, easy, open to any light advance.”
“Boobs!” burst out Georgiana, with purple fire flashing from her eyes. “The long-legged backwoods louts!”
“Don’t insult them. It is you who are wrong. I know what most of them believe, and I can see trouble ahead. It’s going to come when one of these wild Tonto boys falls genuinely in love with you. That will come, if it hasn’t already.”
“It has come, Sister,” replied the girl, sullenly. “Your favorite Cal Thurman has gone off his head. He begged me—only three days ago—to marry him.”
“Oh, Georgie, that is terrible,” returned Mary, greatly troubled. “It is what I feared.”
“Bah! It will do him good,” flashed Georgiana. “He needs to be taken down a peg. . . . Cal was dandy at first. I liked him fine until he began to get serious, sort of bossy, and jealous. Then good night.”
“Georgiana, I marvel at your vanity and stupidity. There’s one boy you can’t make a fool of. When he asked you to marry him he proved how fine and earnest he is. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Why, for tripe’s sake? I don’t love him.”
“But didn’t you trifle with him, the same as with the others?” continued Mary, scathingly. “Oh, I saw you flirt with him—outrageously.”
Georgiana was unable to meet her sister’s scornful and indignant gaze. She dropped her eyes a moment.
“Mary, we clashed right off the bat,” she admitted. “Honest to God I liked him best—I do yet, to be on the level—but he made me sick.”
“How?” queried Mary, sharply.
“Why, about the other boys—and my clothes—and especially my roll-downs. The last time he hopped me about them I just stuck my foot up on the fence and rolled my stockings down farther, right under his eyes.”
“Oh, mercy, you little devil! . . . Then what did Cal do?”
“He beat it, mad as the devil,” replied Georgiana, evidently thrilling at the remembrance. “And he hasn’t been near me since. But he was going to honey around last night, only that toddle stunt of mine made him sore again. I’ll give him about another day. Then he’ll crawl.”
“Georgiana, this boy is fine, sweet, manly. He’s much too good for you. You can’t see his bigness. You’re too set in your attitude—your silly, sentimental, vain obsession to get the best of men.”
“Well, I got the best of him, all right, all right, and unless he changes his tune I’ll keep on doing it.”
“Why are you so—so resentful? Why do you have it in for Cal?” asked Mary.
“I told you. He thought he had something on me,” rejoined Georgiana, mutteringly. She was thinking back. Something rankled in her. Mary’s keen intuition discovered a subtle thought that thrilled her. Georgiana’s strange attitude toward Cal must have owed its origin to a possibility of caring for him, and she did not intend to let her heart rule her head.
“Georgie, think over what I have said,” concluded Mary, rising. “I shall not nag you. I love you dearly and am thinking only of your happiness. You cannot go on with this—this provocativeness. Not out here in this wild Tonto. It will land you on the rocks. These boys are uncouth, primitive, fun-loving and fight-loving, and as such they seem immensely interesting to you. But you don’t understand their reserve force. I tell you they have a savageness in them, a strength born of this wilderness, a heritage from fierce, ruthless, natural men. And they have a code of honor that no woman can risk breaking.”
Miss Stockwell loyally endeavored to rise above her doubts of the good she might have accomplished by this blunt talk with Georgiana. On her own account, however, she felt easier in mind, for she had done what seemed her duty. The only sure result of it, apparently, was to make this strange materialistic girl not only more than ever set in her modern way, but it also piqued her vanity. Alas for poor Cal Thurman! Miss Stockwell had a foreboding of calamity.
Sunday was company day for the Thurmans; they had all gone away to visit relatives, leaving the teacher and her sister to get their own dinner. On former occasions this duty had devolved solely upon Mary. Today, however, Georgiana answered to one of her caprices and insisted on getting the dinner herself. Forthwith she donned a dainty white apron, trimmed with lace, and sallied out to the kitchen.
“Sis, it’s always wise for a girl to doll up, in a strange place like this,” she exclaimed. “Somebody might run in. That’s the dope and I’m giving you a hunch.”
“Georgie, are you wearing the apron because you’re going to do housework, or doing the housework because you want to exhibit the apron?” inquired Mary, blandly.
“There you are with your hammer again,” replied Georgiana, good-humoredly. “It’s a lead pipe you have me figured, Mary. You ought to be tickled if anything made me work.”
Half an hour later Mary felt compelled to acknowledge that her sister’s course in domestic science had not been wholly in vain.
“Georgia, you might make some man a good wife, after all,” mused Mary.
“Sister, old dear, get this,” retorted Georgiana. “I’ll make a darn sight better wife than the crocheting, old-fashioned, two-faced, mealy-mouthed tabby cat you’d have me.”
“Oh, so you have really condescended to imagine you might marry some day,” laughed Mary, always amused at a different phase of Georgiana.
“I don’t see how a girl can have a home and babies without a husband,” complained Georgiana.
Just then a sharp clip-clop of trotting hooves sounded outside on the hard road.
“That’s Cal,” spoke up Georgiana, quickly. “Wonder what brings him home so early.”
“You, probably,” replied Mary, dryly.
“Me? Nix. We’re on the outs. Gee! if he comes in here he’ll see our spiffy spread and I’ll have to invite him to eat. Sis, you ask him.”
“Of course I will. But how do you know it’s Cal?” queried Mary, going to the window.
“I know his horse’s gait.”
Miss Stockwell looked out along the front of the house and then down the road to the corral. She saw a horseman leaning over to open the corral gate. When he straightened up she recognized Cal. His face was bloody. And there was yellow dirt on his blue jumper.
“Oh dear!” she cried, startled.
Georgiana jumped up, and running to the window peered out. She could not, however, see what Mary had seen, because Cal’s back was turned and the high corral fence obstructed the view.
“What’s the matter?” she queried.
“Cal’s face was all bloody,” replied the teacher, in dismay.
“Was that all?” returned Georgiana, apparently without any particular interest. And returning to the table she began to pick at things. But her former appetite and pleasure appeared wanting. A little frown puckered her smooth brow, and her eyes shadowed thoughtfully. Mary divined that Georgiana was more interested than she cared to admit.
“Wonder if he’ll come in,” she mused, presently.
“He certainly will not,” declared Mary. “Don’t you know the boy better tha
n that?”
“Know Cal Thurman? I know him frontward and backward,” answered Georgiana, scornfully.
Miss Stockwell then began her own lunch without comment, yet she kept a covert eye upon her sister. Georgiana seemed to be silent so as to listen the better. What she expected, however, failed to materialize. Presently she rose to go to the back door, which was open, and she looked out.
“Cal,” she called, instantly. No answer! “Cal! . . . Oh, I see you. What’s happened?”
“Aw, nothin’ much,” came the surly answer from the yard.
“You’re all bloody,” cried Georgiana.
“Nope. You can’t see straight. This’s only wet Tonto mud.”
“Say, bo, you can’t kid me,” called the girl, derisively. “What’s happened?”
“I just ran into somethin’.”
“Tell me!” ordered Georgiana, impatiently. Then, as he did not answer, she stepped out upon the porch. “Cal, please come here.”
“What you want?” he growled.
“If you don’t come here I’ll come out there,” she threatened.
Here Mary stepped to the doorway herself, and espied the young man now coming up to the porch. He held a bloodstained scarf to his cheek.
“You’re a pretty-looking sight, I don’t think,” went on Georgiana as he mounted the steps. “Cal Thurman, you’ve been fighting again!”
“Is that all you wanted to say?” he inquired, sarcastically, as he confronted her with troubled face and eyes of fire.
“I’ll say a mouthful presently,” she replied as she reached up to pull his hand and scarf away from his cheek. The action disclosed a rather ugly cut from which blood was oozing. “Oh, that’s dreadful, Cal. So close to your eye! Let me bathe and bandage it for you.”
She flew into the house with more of excited concern than Mary had ever seen in her before.
“Cal, have you been fighting again?” queried Mary, gravely.
“You ought to see the other fellow,” laughed Cal, grimly.
“Who?”
“Never mind, teacher. But I didn’t get licked.”
Before Mary could question Cal further, Georgiana returned with her hands full of things, most noticeably a basin of water and a towel. Carefully they then bathed Cal’s wound, which turned out to be a painful but superficial one, and endeavored to bandage it. But Cal objected to being half blindfolded, so they managed to dress it with cotton and adhesive tape. Whereupon Georgiana drew back and surveyed him with proprietary interest.
