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_A Prairie Infanta.--Frontispiece_
"THE DOCTOR SCOWLED OVER HIS GLASSES AS HE LISTENED."
_See p. 79_]
APrairie Infanta
By
Eva Wilder Brodhead
Illustrated
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY HENRY ALTEMUS
The pictures in this book have been reproduced by the courtesy of "TheYouth's Companion"
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER ONE
THE POWER OF CONSOLATION 13
CHAPTER TWO
A SACRED CHARGE 37
CHAPTER THREE
A TRUE BENEFACTRESS 61
CHAPTER FOUR
WISE IMPULSES 85
CHAPTER FIVE
DESTINY PRESSES 109
CHAPTER SIX
BEWILDERING SATISFACTION 133
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"The doctor scowled over his glasses as he listened" _Frontispiece_
"'I will not go with you!'" 29
"'He is Tesuque, the rain-god'" 55
"'I hoped you'd be able to lend me a hand'" 101
"'Do not make the thread short, Lolita'" 123
"'_Tia_, you are a lady of fortune'" 153
THEPOWER OF CONSOLATION
A PRAIRIE INFANTA
CHAPTER ONE
THE POWER OF CONSOLATION
At the first glance there appeared to be nothing unusual in the sceneconfronting Miss Jane Combs as she stood, broad and heavy, in herdoorway that May morning, looking up and down the single street of thelittle Colorado mining-town.
Jane's house was broad and heavy also--a rough, paintless "shack,"which she had built after her own ideals on a treeless "forty" justbeyond the limits of Aguilar. It was like herself in having nothingabout it calculated to win the eye.
Jane, with her rugged, middle-aged face, baggy blouse, hob-nailed shoesand man's hat, was so unfeminine a figure as she plowed and planted herlittle vega, that some village wag had once referred to her as "AnnieLaurie." Because of its happy absurdity the name long clung to Jane;but despite such small jests every one respected her sterlingtraits,--every one, that is, except Senora Vigil, who lived hard by ina mud house like a bird's nest, and who cherished a grudge against herneighbor.
For, years before, when Jane's "forty" was measured off by thesurveyor, it had been developed that the Vigil homestead was out ofbounds, and that a small strip of its back yard belonged in the Combstract. Jane would have waived her right, but the surveyor said that theland office could not "muddle up" the records in any such way; she musttake her land. And Jane had taken it, knowing, however, that thereaftereven the youngest Vigil, aged about ten months, would regard her as anenemy.
Just now, too, as Alejandro Vigil, a ragged lad with a scarlet cap onhis black head, went by, driving his goats to pasture, he had said"rogue!" under his breath. Jane sighed at the word, and her eyesfollowed him sadly up the road, little thinking her glance was to takein something which should print itself forever in her memory, and makethis day different from all other days.
In the clear sun everything was sharply defined. From the Mexican endof town,--the old "plaza,"--which antedated coal-mines andAmericanisms, gleamed the little gold cross of the adobe Church of SanAntonio. Around it were green, tall cottonwoods and the stragglingmud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its people. Toward the canyonrose the tipple and fans of the Dauntless colliery, banked in slack andslate, and surrounded by paintless mine-houses, while to the rightswept the ugly shape of the company's store. The mine end of the townwas not pretty, nor was it quiet, like the plaza. Just at present thewhistle was blowing, and throngs of miners were gathering at the mouthof the slope. From above clamored the first "trip" of cars. Day and itswork had begun.
Alejandro's red cap was a mere speck in the canyon, and his herd wassprinkled, like bread-crumbs, over the slaty hills. But over in theVigil yard the numberless other little Vigils were to be seen, andJane, as she looked, began to see that some sort of excitement wasstirring them. The senora herself stood staring, wide-eyed and curious.Ana Vigil, her eldest girl, was pointing. Attention seemed to bedirected toward something at the foot of the hill behind Jane's house,and she turned to see what was going on there.
A covered wagon, of the prairie-schooner type, was drawn up at thefoot of the rise. Three horses were hobbled near by, and a little firesmoked itself out, untended. The whole thing meant merely the nighthalt of some farer to the mountains. Jane, about to turn away, sawsomething, however, which held her. In the shadow of the wagon thedoctor's buggy disclosed itself. Some one lay ill under the tunnel ofcanvas.
She had just said this to herself when out upon the sunny stillnessrang a sharp, lamentable cry, such as a child might utter in anextremity of fear or pain. The sound seemed to strike a sudden horrorupon the day's bright face, and Jane shivered. She made an impulsivestep out into her corn-field, hardly knowing what she meant to do. Andthen she saw the doctor alighting from the wagon, and pausing to speakto a man who followed him.
This man wore a broad felt hat, whose peaked crown was bound in asilver cord which glittered gaily above the startled whiteness of hisface. He had on buckskin trousers, and there was a dash of color at hiswaist, like a girdle, which gave a sort of theatric air to his gestureas he threw up his arms wildly and turned away.
The doctor seemed perplexed. He looked distractedly about, and seeingJane Combs in her field, called to her and came running. He reached thefence breathless, for he was neither so young nor so slim as the manleaning weeping against the wagon-step.
"Will you go over there, Miss Combs?" he panted. "There's a poor womanin that wagon breathing her last. They were on their way from Taos toCripple Creek--been camping along the way for some time. Probably theystruck bad water somewhere. She's had a low fever. The husband--Keene,his name is--came for me at daybreak, but it was too late. She seems tobe a Mexican, though the man isn't. What I want you to do is to lookafter a child--a little girl of ten or twelve--who is there with hermother. She must be brought away. Did you hear her cry out justnow?--that desperate wail? We'd just told her!"
"I guess everybody heard it," said Jane. Mechanically she withdrew thebolt of the gate, which forthwith collapsed in a tangle of barbed wire.Tramping over this snare, Jane faced the doctor as he wiped his brows."I aint much hand with children," she reminded him. "You better sendSenora Vigil, too."
As she strode toward the wagon, the man in the sombrero looked up. Hewas good-looking, in a girlish sort of way, with a fair skin and blueeyes. A lock of damp, yellow hair fell over his forehead, and he keptpushing it back as if it confused and blinded him.
"Go in, ma'am--go in!" he said, brokenly. "Though I do not reckon anyone can do much for her. Poor Margarita! I wish I'd made her lifeeasier--but luck was against me! Go in, ma'am!"
As Jane, clutching the iron brace, clambered up the step and pulledback the canvas curtain, the inner darkness struck blank upon hersun-blinded eyes. Then presently a stretch of red stuff, zigzagged witharrow-heads of white and orange and green, grew distinct, and under thethick sweep of the Navajo blanket, the impression of a long, stillshape. The face on the flat pillow was also still, with closed eyeswhose lashes lay dark upon the lucid brown of the chee
k. A braid ofblack hair, shining like a rope of silk, hung over the Indian rug.Heavy it hung, in a lifeless fall, which told Jane that she was toolate for any last service to the stranger lying before her under thescarlet cover.
Neither human kindness nor anything could touch her farther. "The taleof what we are" was ended for her; and from the peace of the quiet lipsit seemed as if the close had been entirely free of bitterness orpain. Jane moved toward the sleeper. She meant to lay the handstogether, as she remembered her mother's had been laid long ago in thestricken gloom of the Kansas farmhouse which had been her home; butsuddenly there was a movement at her feet, and she stopped, havingstumbled over some living thing in the shadows of the couch, somethingthat stirred and struggled and gasped passionately, "_Vamos! Vamos!_"
Such was the wrathful force of this voice which, with so littlecourtesy, bade the intruder begone, as fairly to stagger thewell-meaning visitor.
"I want to help you, my poor child!" Jane said. And her bosom throbbedat the sight of the little, stony face now lifted upon her from thedusk of the floor--a face with a fierce gleam in its dark eyes, andclouded with a wild array of black hair in which was knotted andtwisted a fantastic _faja_ of green wool, narrowly woven.
"I ask no help!" said the child, in very good English. "Only that yougo away! We--we want to be by ourselves, here--" suddenly she brokeoff, glancing piteously toward the couch, and crying out in a changed,husky voice, "_Madre mia! muerta! muerta!_"
A ray of sunshine sped into the wagon as some hand outside withdrew therear curtain a little. It shot a sharp radiance through the red andorange of the Indian blanket, and flashed across the array of tin andcopper cooking things hung against one of the arching ribs of thecanvas hood. Also it disclosed how slight and small a creature it waswho spoke so imperatively, asking solitude for her mourning.
Jane, viewing the little, desperate thing, seemed to find in herself nopower of consolation. And as she stood wordless, with dimming eyes,there came from without a sound of mingling voices. Others were comewith offers of service and sympathy. A confusion of Spanish and Englishhurtled on Jane's uncomprehending ear; some one climbing the stepcried, "_Ave Maria!_" as his eyes fell on the couch. It was PabloVigil, a mild-eyed Mexican, with a miner's lamp burning blue in hiscap.
Behind him rose the round, doughy visage of his wife, blank with awe.She muttered a saint's name as she dragged herself upward, and said,"Ay! ay! ay! the poor little one! Let me take her away! So you arehere, too, Mees Combs. But she will not speak to you, eh? _Lo se! lose!_ She will speak to one who is like herself, a Mexican!"
She seemed to gather up the child irresistibly, murmuring over her inlanguage Jane could not understand, "Tell me thy name, _pobrecita_!Maria de los Dolores, is it? A name of tears, but blessed. And theycall thee Lola, surely, as the custom is? Come, _querida_! Come withme to my house. It will please thy mother!"
It was not precisely clear to Jane how among them the half-dozenMexican women, who now thronged the wagon and filled it with wailingexclamations, managed to pass the little girl from hand to hand and outinto the air. Seeing, however, that this was accomplished, shedescended into the crowd of villagers now assembled outside. There wasa strange, dumb pain in her breast as she saw the little, green-trickedhead disappear in the press about the doctor's buggy. She was sensibleof wishing to carry the child home to her own dwelling; and there wasin her a kind of jealous pang that Senora Vigil should so easily haveaccomplished a task of which she herself had made a distinct failure.
"If I'd only known how to call the poor little soul a lot of coaxingnames!" deplored Jane, "Then maybe she'd have come with me. She'd havebeen better off sleeping on my good feather bed than what she will onthose ragged Mexican mats over to Vigil's." Then, observing that twoburros and several goats, taking advantage of the open gate, were nowgorging themselves on her alfalfa, she proceeded to make a stern end oftheir delight.
Early in the morning of the stranger's burial, Mexicans from up thecanyon and down the creek arrived in town in ramshackle wagons, attendedby dogs and colts. She who lay dead had been of their race. It was meetthat she should not go unfriended to the _Campo Santo_. Besides, theweather was fine, and it is good to see one's kinsfolk andacquaintances now and then. The church, too, would be open, althoughthe _padre_, who lived in another town, might not be there. Young andold, they crowded the narrow aisles, even up to the altar space, wherea row of tapers burned in the solemn gloom. Little children werethere, also, hushed with awe. And many a sad-faced Mexican motherpressed her baby closer to her heart that day, taking note of thelittle girl in the front pew, sitting so silent and stolid beside herweeping father.
Jane Combs was in the back of the church. In their black _rebozos_, thepoorest class of poor Mexican women were clad with more fitness thanshe. For Jane, weighted with the gravity of the occasion, had donned anaustere black bonnet such as aged ladies wear, and its effect upon hershort locks was incongruous in the extreme. No one, however, thought ofher as being more queer than usual; for her sunburned cheeks were wetwith tears, and her eyes were deep with tenderness and pity as theyfixed themselves upon the small, rigid figure in the shadows of thealtar's dark burden.
Upon the following day, as Miss Combs opened her ditch-gate for thetide of mine water which came in a flume across the arroyo, she sawthe doctor and Mr. Keene approaching. They had an absorbed air, and asshe opened the door for them the doctor said, "Miss Combs, we want youto agree to a plan of ours, if you can."
Keene tilted his chair restlessly. He looked as if life was regainingits poise with him, and his voice seemed quite cheerful as he said,"Well, it's about my little girl! I'm bound for a mountain-camp, andit's no place for a motherless child. Lola's a kind of queer littlesoul, too! My wife made a great deal of her. She was from old Mexico,ma'am. She was a _mestizo_--not pure Indian, you know, but partSpanish. Her folks were _rancheros_, near Pachuca, where I worked inthe mines. I'm from Texas, myself. They weren't like these peons abouthere--they were good people. They never wanted Margarita to marry me."He laughed a little. "But she did, and the old folks never let up onher. They're both dead now. We've lived hither and yon around NewMexico these ten years past, and I aint been very successful; thoughthings will be different now that I've decided to pull out for the goldregions!"
Keene paused with an air of growing good cheer. He seemed to forget hispoint. Whereupon the doctor said simply: "In view of these things, Mr.Keene would like to make some arrangement for leaving his daughter hereuntil he can look round."
"And we thought of your taking her, ma'am," broke in Keene, withrenewed anxiety. "Lola's delicate and high-strung, and I don't know howto manage her like my wife did. It'll hamper me terrible to take heralong. Of course she's bright," he interpolated, hastily. "She wasalways picking up things everywhere, and speaks two languages well. Andshe'd be company for you, ma'am, living alone like you do. And I'd payany board you thought right."
"'I WILL NOT GO WITH YOU!'"]
Jane's pulses had leaped at his suggestion. She was aware of making aresolute effort as she said, "Wouldn't Lola be happier with theVigils?"
"Her mother wouldn't rest in her grave," cried Keene, "if she knew thechild was being brought up amongst a tribe of peons! And me--I want mychild to grow up an American citizen, ma'am!"
"Take the little girl, Miss Combs," advised the doctor. "It'll be goodfor you to have her here."
"I've got to think if it'll be good for her," said Jane.
"If that's all!" chorused the two men. They rose. The thing wassettled. "I'll go and tell the Vigil tribe," said Keene, "and sendLola's things over here right off." With a wave of the hand and arelieved look, he went down the road.
That night a boy brought to Jane's door a queer little collapsibletrunk of sun-cured hide, thonged fast with leather loops. The Navajoblanket was outside. Jane surmised that Mr. Keene had sent it becausehe dreaded its saddening associations. A message from him conveyed theinformation that he expected to leave town early the next mor
ning, andthat Lola would be sent over from the Vigils.
All during the afternoon Jane waited with breathless expectancy. Theafternoon waned, but Lola did not come. Finally, possessed of fear andforeboding, Jane set forth to inquire into the matter.
Upon opening the Vigil gate, she saw Lola herself sitting on thedoorstep, looking over toward the little wood crosses of the Mexicanburying-ground. The girl hardly noted Jane's approach, but behind her,Senora Vigil came forward, shaking her head at Jane and touching herlip significantly.
"She does not know," whispered the senora. "Her papa did not saygood-by. He said it was better for him to 'slip away.' And me--I couldnot tell her! I am only a woman."
"You think--she will not want--to live with me?"
The other's face grew very bland. "She said to-day 'how ugly' was yourhouse," confessed Senora Vigil. "And when you was feeding your chickensshe cried out, '_Hola_, what a queer woman is yonder!' Children havefunny things in their heads. But it is for you to tell her you come tofetch her away!" And the senora called out, "_Lolita, ven aca!_"
The girl looked up startled. "_Que hay?_" she asked, coming toward themapprehensively.
"Lola," began Jane, "your papa wants you should stay with me for awhile. He--he saw how lonesome I was," she continued, unwisely,"and--and so he decided to leave you here. Lola, I hope--I--" She couldnot go on for the strangeness in Lola's gaze.
"Is he _gone_--my father? But no! he would not leave me behind! No! no!_Dejeme! dejeme!_ you do not say the truth! You shall not touch me! Iwill not--will not go with you!" She turned wildly, dizzily, as ifabout to run she knew not where; and then flung herself down beforeSenora Vigil, clasping the Mexican woman's knees in a frantic, faintinggrasp.
A SACRED CHARGE