CHAPTER FORTY-TWO AN EVENTFUL SPRING
Spring came, and every mountain canyon held a rushing torrent. The skywas gloriously blue after the long months that it had been leaden-gray,and flowers began to appear in the crevices soon after the snow wasgone.
Joy in the heart of the young school-teacher sang with the returningbirds. Even the small Martin children seemed to be eagerly expectant.
"I feel as though something ever so nice is going to happen, MissBayley, don't you?" Dixie looked up glowingly from the slate on whichshe was trying to solve a difficult sum.
Her beloved friend and teacher stood at her side. These two had remainedafter school, that the older Martin girl might catch up with Ken inmathematics.
"I'd heaps rather write rhymes or sing songs or play on my violin,"Dixie confided when at last the slate had been washed clean and replacedin the desk.
"I'm glad," Miss Bayley said as she pinned on her hat, preparing todepart. "You will derive much more joy from the poetry and the music,but arithmetic, too, must be mastered, if you are to go to college."
The girl looked brightly up at her teacher. "I'd have to be living in afairy-tale to have that happen," she declared. Then laughingly sheconfessed, "There are only six pennies in the sock under my mattress,and you can't think how hard I have tried to save all winter. However, Imight call them a nest-egg toward the future education of the fourMartins."
The gold-brown eyes of the girl glowed from beneath the wide brim of herrather shabby hat, but the young teacher saw not the hat but only theradiant young face.
"Dixie," she exclaimed suddenly, "this is the hour that the stagearrives. Let's walk down the canyon road a little way and see if it iscoming. Shall we?"
"I'd love to!" was the glad reply. "And maybe we'll find some wildflowers." Then, when they had started swinging along together, theyounger girl asked, looking up at her taller companion, "Miss Bayley,are you expecting some one in particular to come to-day?"
The rosy flush in the teacher's face puzzled Dixie. She had not thoughtthat a romance might exist between Ken's old friend and the young womanwhom she so loved.
"No, dear, no one in particular," was the quiet reply, and it was true,for although Miss Bayley had received a letter stating that FrederickEdrington would soon be through with his work of inspection, he had notsaid when he would revisit the canyon.
They had reached a high point, and Dixie had clambered up on a peak ofrocks, that she might have a wider vision. Shading her eyes from theglare of the sun, she looked down into the valley.
"Surely there is something coming," she called gleefully to the waitingteacher. "I can see it moving among the pine trees." Then, clapping herhands, she added joyfully: "It _is_ the stage! It's out in the clearing,and now it's beginning to climb. I do believe it will pass here in halfan hour or so."
Miss Bayley pressed her hand on her heart to try to still its rapidbeating. "I can't understand it at all," she thought, "but I seem tofeel sure that some one _is_ coming on the stage, some one whom I shallbe glad to see." Never before had a half hour seemed so long to the twowho spent the time searching for flowers among the rocks. Only a few,blue as the sky, had been found, when Dixie stood suddenly alert,listening. "Hear that rumble?" she sang out. "It's the stage just aroundOld Indian Rock." She pointed to an outjutting boulder below them at theturn in the canyon road. Breathlessly they waited. There were fourpassengers in the coach, and one was an elderly woman, who, handsomelydressed, sat very erect, and the expression on her proud, aristocraticface assured the two by the roadside that, whoever she might be, theerrand that had brought her to the mountains was most displeasing toher.
The elderly stage-driver waved the hand that held the whip, and beameddown good-naturedly. The young teacher and Dixie smiled and nodded, butalthough the occupants of the coach must have seen them, they were notat all interested.
The girl heard Miss Bayley sigh. "Dear teacher," she said softly, "won'tyou come on down to our cabin for supper? There is to be cottage cheesethat you like so much, with nice yellow cream on it."
Dixie was convinced that her companion had been expecting some one whohad not come.
Josephine Bayley laughed merrily. "You dear little tempter," she said,"of course I'll go." And so hand in hand they descended the trail thatled under the great old pines and down to the picturesque log cabin.
Although it was but five o'clock, the little mother at once began toprepare the evening meal. Ken and Jimmy-Boy were out milking the goat,and Carol was over at the Valley Ranch.
"May I set the table?" the teacher inquired.
Dixie nodded. "Let's use the kept-for-company dishes to-night," shesuggested.
"But you promised long ago that you wouldn't call me company," MissBayley protested.
"I know I did," Dixie smiled over the big yellow bowl which held thefoamy cheese, and into which she was pouring rich cream. "I don'tunderstand the least bit why, but somehow I feel as if to-day were anextra occasion, sort of a party."
"Perhaps because it's the first real spring day that we've had," MissBayley announced, as she opened the old walnut sideboard and broughtforth the best china. "Your mother liked beautiful things, didn't she,Dixie? This pattern is lovely."
The girl looked up brightly. "I like it," she replied; then addedsimply, "I suppose it was hard for Mother to live in a cabin, for allher life had been spent in an old colonial mansion in the South. Ourgreat-aunt, Mrs. James Haddington-Allen, lives there, or, at least, Iguess she does. She's never answered any of our letters, but she alwayswrites something on the envelopes before she returns them, so of courseshe does receive them."
"Have you written to her lately?" Miss Bayley was setting the table asshe asked the question. She was surprised at the decided tone in whichthe small girl replied: "No, I haven't. I never wrote her but once, andthat was after we children were left all alone. Our mother had oftenwritten, but her letters were always returned unopened."
"Mrs. James Haddington-Allen must be a hard-hearted old dragoness," thegirl-teacher thought; but aloud she commented, "If your great-aunt couldbut see you four children, I am sure she would love you all."
"She might love Carol because she is beautiful, like our mother, andshe'd like Jimmy-Boy too, but Ken and I are regular Martins, so probablyour great-aunt wouldn't like us much." To the surprise of the listener,there was a sob in the girl's voice as she continued, "I'd heaps ratherour great-aunt would never come, for probably she'd want to take Caroland Jimmy-Boy to her fine Southern home, but she wouldn't want Ken orme. I--I just couldn't live without Carol and Jimmy-Boy. I couldn't. Icouldn't!"
Miss Bayley went toward the girl and took her in her arms. "My dearchild," she said tenderly, "before I'd let that happen, I would open upmy old home in New York on the Hudson and adopt all four of you."
Dixie smiled through her tears. "Goodness!" she said, springing away andwiping her eyes on the towel by the kitchen pump, "the cheese is saltyenough as 'tis. I mustn't spill any tears in it."
Dixie had not grasped the meaning of the words she had heard. To her,Miss Bayley was just a poor young woman who had to teach school for aliving, and a home in New York on the Hudson presented no picture to thegirl who had always lived in the mountains, and who had never beenfarther away than Genoa. But to Miss Bayley those words had meant much.Why had she never thought of it before, she wondered. If FrederickEdrington never came back to her, if he had found, while away from her,that he had been mistaken, that he did not really care, still her lifeneed not be empty.
She would go back to New York and take these four children with her. Thegreat old salon that had been in darkness since the death of her parentswould ring once again with laughter and song. Then when her brother Timcame back from his three years at sea, there would be a happy homewaiting for him. The picture delighted the girl-teacher, and she beganto sing as she placed the supper dishes on the best table-cloth.
Carol came in, bringing a bunch
of early flowers from a sunny, shelteredgarden on the Valley Ranch.
"Oh, how pretty!" Miss Bayley exclaimed. "They are just what we need forthe middle of the table."
The younger girl looked mystified. "Is there going to be a party? Issomebody extra coming?"
"No, dear, just we five," Miss Bayley began, but the small girlinterrupted with, "But, teacher, you've put out six plates andeverything."
"So I have!" The girl-teacher actually blushed. But before she couldexplain, even to herself, why she had done this, Dixie called excitedly,"Carol, skip to the door and see who's coming. Ken's waving his cap andshouting to some one coming down the canyon trail."