CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ABOUT A PIANO
In the lazy hour just after a satisfying dinner, Lance stood leaningover an end of the piano, watching Belle while she played--he listenedand smoked a cigarette and looked as though he hadn't a thing on hismind.
"I remember you used to sing that a lot for the little Douglas girl,"he observed idly. "She used to sit and look at you--my word, but hereyes were the bluest, the lonesomest eyes I ever saw! She seemed tothink you were next to angels when you sang. I saw it in her face, butI was too much of a kid then to know what it was." He lighted a freshcigarette, placed it between Belle's lips so that she need not stopplaying while she smoked, and laughed as if he were rememberingsomething funny.
"She always looked so horrified when she saw you smoking," he said."And so adoring when you sang, and so lonesome when she had to rideaway. She was a queer kid--and she's just as unexpected now--just asScotch. Didn't you find her that way, dad?"
"She was Scotch enough," Tom mumbled from his chair by the fire."Humpin' hyenas! She was like handlin' a wildcat!"
"The poor kid never did have a chance to be human," said Belle, andceased playing for a moment. "Good heavens, how she did enjoy the twohours I gave her at the piano! She's got the makings of a musician, ifshe could keep at it."
"We-ell--" Having artfully led Belle to this point, Lance quite asartfully edged away from it. "You gave her all the chance you could.And she ought to be able to go on, if she wants to. I suppose oldScotty's human enough to get her something to play on."
"Him? _Human!_" Tom shifted in his chair. "If pianos could breed andincrease into a herd, and he could ship a carload every fall, Scottymight spend a few dollars on one."
"It's a darned shame," Belle exclaimed, dropping her fingers to thekeys again. "Mary Hope just _starves_ for everything that makes lifeworth living. And that old devil--"
"Say--don't make me feel like a great, overgrown money-hog," Lanceprotested. "A girl starving for music, because she hasn't a piano toplay on. And a piano costs, say, three or four hundred dollars. Ofcourse, we've got the money to buy one--I suppose I could dig up theprice myself. I was thinking I'd stake our schoolhouse to a library.That's something it really needs. But a piano--I wish you hadn't saidanything about starving. I know I'd hate to go hungry for music,but--"
"Well, humpin' hyenas! I'll buy the girl a piano. I guess it won'tbreak the outfit to pay out a few more dollars, now we've started.We're outlaws, anyway--might as well add one more crime to the list.Only, it don't go to the Douglas shack--it goes into the schoolhouse.Lance, you go ahead and pick out some books and ship 'em on to theranch, and I'll see they get over there. Long as we've started fixin'up a school, we may as well finish the job up right. By Henry, I'llshow the Black Rim that there ain't anything small about theLorrigans, anyway!"
"Dad, I think you're showin' yourself a real sport," Lance laughed."We-ell, if you're game to buy a piano, I'm game to buy books. Westaked Black Rim to a school, so we'll do the job right. And by theway, Belle, if you're going to get me to Jumpoff in time for thatevening train, don't you think it's about time you started?"
That is how it happened that Mary Hope walked into the schoolhouse oneMonday and found a very shiny new piano standing across one corner ofthe room where the light was best. On the top was a pile of music. Inanother corner of the room stood a bookcase and fifty volumes; shecounted them in her prim, frugal way that she had learned from hermother. They were books evidently approved by some Board of Educationfor school libraries, and did not interest her very much. Not when apiano stood in the other corner.
She was early, so she opened it and ran her fingers over the keys. Sheknew well enough who had brought it there, and her mouth was pressedinto a straight line, her eyes were troubled.
The Lorrigans--always the Lorrigans! Why did they do these things whenno one expected goodness or generosity from them? Why had they builtthe schoolhouse--and then given a dance where every one got drunk andthe whole thing ended in a fight? Every one said it was the Lorriganswho had brought the whisky. Some one told her they had a five-gallonkeg of it in the shed behind the schoolhouse, and she thought it mustbe true, the way all the men had acted. And why had they burned theWhipple shack and all the school books, so that she could not haveschool until more books were bought?--an expense which the Swedes, atleast, could ill afford.
Why had Lance taken her to Jumpoff, away from the fighting, and thengone straight to the saloon and gotten so drunk that he fought everyone in town before he left in the morning? Why had he never come nearher again? And now that he was back in California, why did he ignoreher completely, and never send so much as a picture postal to showthat he gave her a thought now and then?
Mary Hope would not play the piano that day. She was more stern thanusual with her pupils, and would not so much as answer them when theyasked her where the piano and all the books had come from. Which was afoolish thing to do, since the four Boyle children were keen enough toguess, and sure to carry the news home, and to embellish the truth intrue range-gossip style.
Mary Hope fully decided that she would have the piano hauled back tothe Lorrigans. Later, she was distressed because she could think of noone who would take the time or the trouble to perform the duty, and apiano she had to admit is not a thing you can tie behind the cantle ofyour saddle, or carry under your arm. The books were a differentmatter. They were for the school. But the piano--well, the piano wasfor Mary Hope Douglas, and Mary Hope Douglas did not mean to bepatronized in this manner by Lance Lorrigan or any of his kin.
But she was a music-hungry little soul, and that night after she wassure that the children had ridden up over the basin's brim and wereout of hearing, Mary Hope sat down and began to play. When she beganto play she began to cry, though she was hardly conscious of hertears. She seemed to hear Lance Lorrigan again, saying, "Don't belonely, you girl. Take the little pleasant things that come--" Shewondered, in a whispery, heart-achey way, if he had meant the pianowhen he said that. If he had meant--just a piano, and a lot of booksfor school!
The next thing that she realized was that the light was growing dim,and that her throat was aching, and that she was playing over and overa lovesong that had the refrain:
"Come back to me, sweetheart, and love me as before-- Come back to me, sweetheart, and leave me nevermore!"
Which was perfectly imbecile, a song she had always hated because ofits sickly sentimentality. She had no sweetheart, and having none, shecertainly did not want him back. But she admitted that there was acertain melodious swing to the tune, and that her fingers had probablystrayed into the rhythm of it while she was thinking of somethingtotally different.
The next day she played a little at noontime for the children, andwhen school was over she played for two hours. And the next day afterthat slipped away--she really had meant to ride over to the AJ, orsend a note by the children, asking Jim Boyle if he could pleaseremove the piano and saying that she felt it was too expensive a giftfor the school to accept from the Lorrigans.
On the third day she really did send a prim little note to Jim Boyle,and she received a laconic reply, wholly characteristic of the BlackRim's attitude toward the Devil's Tooth outfit.
"Take all you can git and git all you can without going to jale. That's what the Lorrigans are doing, Yrs truly,
"J. A. Boyle."
It was useless to ask her father. She had known that all along. WhenAlexander Douglas slipped the collars up on the necks of his horses,he must see where money would be gained from the labor. And there wasno money for the Douglas pocket in hauling a piano down the Devil'sTooth Ridge.
But the whole Black Rim was talking about it. Mary Hope felt sure thatthey were saying ill-natured things behind her back. Never did shemeet man or woman but the piano was mentioned. Sometimes she wasasked, with meaning smiles, how she had come to stand in so well withthe Devil's Tooth. She knew that they were all gossipin
g of how LanceLorrigan had taken her home from the dance, with Belle Lorrigan'sbronco team. She had been obliged to return a torn coat to Mrs.Miller, and to receive her own and a long lecture on the wisdom ofchoosing one's company with some care. She had been obliged to begMrs. Miller not to mention the matter to her parents, and the word hadgone round, and had reached Mother Douglas--and you can imagine howpleasant that made home for Mary Hope.
Because she was lonely, and no one seemed willing to take it away, shekept the piano. She played it, and while she played she wept becausethe Rim folk simply would not understand how little she wanted theLorrigans to do things for her. And then, one day, she hit upon a planof redeeming herself, for regaining the self-respect she felt wasslipping from her with every day that the piano stood in theschoolhouse.
She would give a series of dances--they would be orderly, well-behaveddances, with no refreshments stronger than coffee and lemonade!--andshe would sell tickets, and invite every one she knew, and beg them tocome and help to pay for the school piano.
Even her mother approved that plan, though she did not approve dances."But the folk are that sinfu' they canna bide wi' any pleasure savethe hoppin' aboot wi' their arms around the waist of a woman," shesighed. "A church social wad be far more tae my liking, Hope--if wehad only a church!"
"Well, since there isn't any church, and people won't go to anythingbut a dance, I shall have to get the money with dances," Mary Hopereplied with some asperity. The subject was beginning to wear hernerves. "Pay for it I shall, if it takes all my teacher's salary forfive years! I wish the Lorrigans had minded their own business. I'veheard nothing but piano ever since it came there. I hate theLorrigans! Sometimes I almost hate the piano."
"Ye shud hae thought on all that before ye accepit a ride home wi'young Lance, wi' a coat ye didna own on your back, and disobedience inyour heart. 'Tis the worst of them a' ye chose to escort ye, Hope, andif he thought he could safely presume to gi' ye a present like yonpiano, ye hae but yersel' tae blame for it."
"He didn't give it!" cried Mary Hope, her eyes ablaze with resentment."He wasna here when it came. I havena heard from him and I dinna wantto hear from him. It was Belle Lorrigan gave the piano, as I've said amillion times. And I shall pay for it--"
"Not from your ain pocket will ye pay. Ye can give the dance--and ifye make it the Fourth of July, with a picnic in the grove, and a dancein the schoolhouse afterwards, 'tis possible Jeanie may come up fromPocatello wi' friends--and twa dollars wad no be too much to ask for aday and a night of entertainment."
"Well, mother! When you do--" Mary Hope bit her tongue upon theremainder of the sentence. She had very nearly told her mother thatwhen she did choose to be human she had a great head for business.
It was a fine, practical idea, and Mary Hope went energetically aboutits development. She consulted Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy also hadfriends in Pocatello, and she obligingly gave the names of them all.She strongly advised written invitations, with a ticket enclosed andthe price marked plainly. She said it was a crying shame the way theLorrigans had conducted their dance, and that Mary Hope ought to bevery careful and not include any of that rough bunch in this dance.
"Look how that young devil, Lance Lorrigan, abused my Bill, rightbefore everybody!" she cited, shifting her youngest child, who wasteething, to her hip that she might gesticulate more freely. "And lookhow they all piled into our crowd and beat 'em up! Great way todo--give a dance and then beat up the folks that come to it! And lookat what Lance done right here in town--as if it wasn't enough, whatthey done out there! Bill's got a crick in his back yet, where Lanceknocked him over the edge of a card table. You pay 'em for the piano,Hope; I'll help yuh scare up a crowd. But don't you have none of theLorrigans, or there'll be trouble sure!"
Mary Hope flushed. "I could hardly ask the Lorrigans to come and helppay for their own present," she pointed out in her prim tone. "I hadnever intended to ask the Lorrigans."
"Well, maybe not. But if you did ask them, I know lots of folks thatwouldn't go a step--and my Bill's one," said Mrs. Kennedy.
So much depends upon one's point of view. Black Rim gossip, whichpersisted in linking Mary Hope's name with Lance Lorrigan, grinnedamong themselves while they mentioned the piano, the schoolhouse, andthe library as evidence of Lance's being "stuck on her." The Boylechildren had frequently tattled to Mary Hope what they heard at home.Lance had done it all because he was in love with her.
Denial did not mend matters, even if Mary Hope's pride had notrebelled against protesting that the gossip was not true. LanceLorrigan was not in love with her. Over and over she told herself so,fiercely and with much attention to evidence which she consideredconvincing. Only twice she had seen him in the two weeks of his visit.Once he had come to mend the lock his father had broken, and he hadtaken her home from the dance because of the fighting. Never had hemade love to her.... Here she would draw a long breath and wonder alittle, and afterwards shake her head and say to herself that hethought no more of her than of Jennie Miller. He--he just had a waywith him.
Mary Hope's point of view was, I think, justifiable. Leaving out theintolerable implication that Lance had showered benefits upon her, shefelt that the Lorrigans had been over-generous. The schoolhouse andthe books might be accepted as a public-spirited effort to do theirpart. But the piano, since it had not been returned, must be paid for.And it seemed to Mary Hope that the Lorrigans themselves would deeplyresent being invited to a dance openly given for the purpose ofraising money to repay them. It would never do; she could not ask themto come.
Moreover, if the Lorrigans came there would be trouble, whether therewas whisky or not. At the house-warming dance the Lorrigans hadpractically cleaned out the crowd and sent them home long beforedaylight. There had been no serious shooting--the Lorrigans had foughtwith their fists and had somehow held the crowd back from thedanger-line of gun-play. But Mary Hope feared there would be a killingthe next time that the Jumpoff crowd and the Lorrigans came together.
She tried to be just, but she had heard only one side of theaffair,--which was not the Lorrigan side. Whispers had long been goinground among the Black Rim folk; sinister whispers that had to do withcattle and horses that had disappeared mysteriously from the Rimrange. Mary Hope could not help hearing the whispers, could not helpwondering if underneath them there was a basis of truth. Her fatherstill believed, in spite of Tom's exoneration, that his spottyyearling had gone down the gullets of Devil's Tooth men. She did notknow, but it seemed to her that where every one hinted at the samething, there must be some truth in their hints.
All of which proves, I think, that Mary Hope's point of view was theonly one that she could logically hold, living as she did in the campof the enemy; having, as she had, a delicate sense of propriety, andwanting above all things to do nothing crude and common. As she sawit, she simply could _not_ ask any of the Lorrigans to her picnic anddance on the Fourth of July.