Ladybird

  “She’s a girl I picked up on the road,” introduced his mother informally. “She’s goin’ to stay with us ta-night. She’s all right.”

  “I bet she is,” vouched Jimmy. “Buck wouldn’t take up with ’er ef she wasn’t. Say, girl, you gotta dog t’home, ain’t ya? He smells it on ya, I guess.”

  “I did have,” said Fraley sadly, dropping her head to hide the tears that stung her eyes. “He got shot two days ago.”

  “Aw shucks! Ain’t that a dirty shame,” said Jimmy sympathetically.

  Fraley liked Jimmy from that time, and the rest of the children gathered around her with clumsy affection, feeling that her love for dogs had made her kin to them.

  They gathered around the table while Caroline took up the stew in big tin plates. Fraley had a nicked thick white one because she was company.

  She took off her head kerchief and washed her hands at the tin basin on the bench as the rest did. Then she sat down as a guest at a table with strangers for the first time in her life.

  And here, as before, they noticed a difference in her. She did not reach out and grab for things. She did not make a noise with her lips as she ate, nor swoop up gravy with her spoon. She did not fill her mouth too full, nor talk when she was chewing. She seemed to eat without doing so. She put things into her mouth with quiet little unobtrusive movements, as if eating were quite a secondary thing, yet she seemed to enjoy what they gave her and accepted the second helping when it was offered.

  The children watched her fascinated, the candlelight playing on her gold hair and on her delicate features. She seemed like a creature from another world to them. Yet she was telling their mother that she had lived all her life in these parts, and the garments that she wore were no better than their own.

  It appeared that the cows had been milked by Caroline and Jimmy, so the guest had no opportunity to prove her abilities in that line, but she promised to be up bright and early the next morning to do it before she left.

  It was after the supper was cleared away and Fraley had helped with the washing up that they gathered around the fire, and Fraley felt a sudden loneliness in the midst of the friendly family. She and her mother had been like this together, even though there had only been two of them, and now there was no one! If only this were thousands of miles away from the home cabin gladly would she have accepted the earnest invitation of her hostess to stay on indefinitely and visit. But the thought of the men who were expected the next day to buy steer filled her with terror.

  “Say, why’n’t you git out yer Bible an’ read to us all?” asked the mother presently, reaching forward to stir up the fire with a long stick that lay on the hearth. “I’d like to see what it sounds like after all these years, an’ it wouldn’t do these children any harm to hear it once, too.”

  Fraley shrank from bringing out the dear relic, sewed so carefully into its cotton covers by the hand of the beloved; but she could not refuse when they had been so kind to her. She must do something to repay them for her supper and night’s lodging. So she went to the corner where she had laid her gray woolen bag and took out the Bible for the first time since her mother had committed it to her care. She was a little troubled as she did so because of the papers that her mother had told her were inside the Book, but when she unwrapped the outer sheathing of cotton, she found that the cover was fitted tightly over the old worn boards of the original and that the papers were securely placed within this outer jacket of cloth with a fold of the cloth turned inside over their edges. Then she need not explain everything to these strangers and have them fingering over her precious papers and asking her all sorts of questions when she had scarcely seen the papers herself.

  With quiet reserve she took the chair that her hostess had placed for her beside the table, where two candles pierced the gloom of the room outside the ring of firelight.

  “Where shall I read?” she asked, lifting her serious big eyes to look around the group.

  “Anyplace,” said Caroline, peering over her shoulder curiously. “Is it a story?”

  “Yes, it’s full of stories.”

  “Read what you like,” said the mother.

  So Fraley turned to a favorite chapter to repeat it.

  The candlelight flickered on the worn page, the edge almost in tatters where the little Fraley had fingered it long ago when she learned it; and the sweet earnest face of the girl was bent over the book for a moment and then lifted, with her gaze across to the firelight, as she spoke the wonderful words.

  The family watched her spellbound.

  “Say, you ain’t lookin’ on that there book; how can you know what it says?” interrupted Jim finally, too puzzled to wait until she was done. “Are you all makin’ that up?”…

  Fraley smiled. “Oh no. I know it all by heart. I forgot I was not looking. I learned it when I was a very little girl.”

  “You learned that whole book?” asked Caroline incredulously.

  “Oh no, but a great many parts. I used to learn a chapter a week and sometimes more. I know a lot of the gospels and the epistles and a great many psalms. You see, this was the only book we had. I never went to school, so Mother made me learn out of here.”

  “Car’line went a whole two terms when we was back in Oregon,” boasted her mother, “but she can’t read good like that.”

  “Oh, I can’t be bothered,” said Caroline with a toss of her head, “I allus hev too much to do. And ennyhow, where’s the good of readin’? I’d never hev ennythin’ to read.”

  “I’m gonta send fer us one o’ them Bibles, an’ you better git practiced up, Car’line, fer I meanta hev it read now an’ then.”

  “Gwan!” said Jimmy. “I wanta hear what’s it’s like. Mebbe I’ll read it.”

  So Fraley went on with her chapter, being many times interrupted in the course of her recitation.

  The room was very still. Even the little ones listened with round, wondering eyes, and the mother nodded now and then as her memory brought back her vague former knowledge of the story that was being told, although it had never reached her soul before as a thing that had anything to do with her personally.

  As the story of the death on the cross changed into the glory of resurrection, the faces around the fire grew vivid with excitement, and Fraley, led on by their interest, told of Christ’s appearance to the different disciples and to the women.

  As she paused, the great log that had been burning in the fireplace fell in two and sent up a shower of sparks, and the mother, more deeply stirred by the story than she cared to have her children see, rose and fixed the fire again; but Jimmy leaned forward eagerly.

  “An’ wot happened then? Gwan!”

  So Fraley told of the ascension, taking the words from the first chapter of Acts.

  “Oh gosh! Then He’s gone,” said the boy, flinging himself back in dismay. “Wot was the use of risin’ from the dead then? He might just as well be dead as up in the sky.”

  “Oh no,” said Fraley earnestly, “because He’s coming again. Listen—” and she began to recite again. “ ‘This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.’ And you know in that first chapter I read, He said, ‘If I go…I will come again.’ ”

  “Well, did He?” The boy’s brows were drawn in a frown of earnestness.

  “Not yet. But He’s coming sure, sometime. There are lots of places in the Bible where it tells about it. He might come tonight or tomorrow. It says it will be when no one knows not even the angels know. But it’s going to be wonderful!”

  “Gosh! Then you can’t tell us the rest of it t’night,” he said in a disappointed tone. “I don’t see why He had ta go away ’tall ef He was comin’ back.”

  “Why,” said Fraley, puckering her brows in her effort to explain, “because He had something to do for us up there before He came back.”

  “What ’e have ta do?”

  “He had to take our sins up there and tell God He’d taken
them all on Him when He died.”

  “Gosh! What for?”

  “Because we were all sinners.”

  “Well, what did God care about that?”

  “He cared because He loved everybody. He made them to be His children and do right and be His family, and everybody went and did what He told them not to do, and He felt bad. He had said everybody that sinned had to die, and He had to keep His word or He’d have been a liar, so He sent His Son to die and make a way for everybody that wanted to come back and be forgiven.”

  The boy who had lived all his young life on the edge of an outlaw’s country opened his eyes in wonder at this, and silence filled the room for a long moment while each listener thought over this new version of what life and sin and death meant.

  Then suddenly the mother turned toward the stranger and saw that her face looked worn and her eyelids were drooping.

  “Say,” she said eagerly, “whyn’t you stay? You all could stay awhile, ennyhow, and git good en rested an’ read this book to us a spell.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” said Fraley, starting up in alarm. “I ought not to have stopped overnight really!”

  “Well, you all gotta go to bed now. It’s way after bedtime.”

  “Aw, Maw!” protested Jimmy. “It’s jes’ this one night, an’ we wanna hear more.”

  “Yes, jes’ this one night for you all, but this child’s gotta go a-journey in the early mawnin’, and Car’line an’ Billy gotta take her down to the railroad. Hustle down quick now an’ no more words.”

  Fraley slept with Caroline in a loft overhead that they reached by a ladder at the far end of the room, and presently the house was still, the fire banked, the door barred, and no chance to sneak away as she had half contemplated doing. Jimmy was sleeping on the cot in the big room downstairs, just at the foot of the ladder. The little window in the loft was too small to crawl through even if she dared drop so far, and the mother with her brood slept at the other end of the loft. So Fraley, with her hand out on the bag that carried her old Bible, fell asleep. Tomorrow, perhaps early in the morning, Brand was coming to buy steers, and maybe Pierce Boyden with him. But she was safe tonight.

  Chapter 8

  The household was astir early, for the roosters began to crow at daylight and all the other creatures seemed to think it was time to wake up. Fraley dressed quickly and got down even before Caroline, who was primping a bit for the ride to town.

  Fraley milked both cows in spite of the family’s protests, for they somehow felt that she was above such work But she insisted sweetly and carried her point, and then they all sat down to breakfast, Jimmy in open admiration now for a girl who could both read books and milk cows.

  “Gosh, ef you’d stay,” he urged with his mouth full of corn cake, “we’d have a great time! Wouldn’t we, Maw?”

  “I reckun we would,” said the mother with a sigh of regret. “But p’raps she’ll come back sometime when she gits done visitin’ her kinfolks.”

  Fraley smiled. She was in a frenzy to be gone, but she could not hurry Caroline, who was enjoying her breakfast and had just reached over and helped herself to another piece of fried meat.

  “We don’t have meat fer breakfast every day,” vouchsafed Billy with his mouth full. “It’s jes’ cause o’ you. I wisht you’d stay.”

  It was just as they were leaving that Fraley ventured her request in the mother’s ear, as she said good-bye.

  “Please don’t say anything about my being here to any of those men that come from around the mountain,” she whispered. “There’s someone I’m afraid of that might follow me, and I don’t want anyone to find out where I’ve gone.”

  “All right, child, I won’t,” promised the woman with a kindly pat. “You’re a good girl, an’ ef anybody worries you, you jus’ come right back to us. We’ll see that no harm don’t come to ya. I’ll see that Jimmy don’t say nothin’, too. Don’t ya worry! Good luck to ya, an’ don’t cher fergit the Bible!”

  “No, I won’t,” promised Fraley. “I’ve put the address safe in the Bible, so I can’t lose it.”

  Then she went out and climbed up into the buckboard beside Caroline, her precious bag across her lap, and they started, Billy riding on behind atop the wooden box that held the groceries yesterday, his legs hanging down and swinging.

  Away they drove over the winding brown ribbon of a road, over humps and hollows, until suddenly and surprisingly the log cabin was lost to view, and the country stretched wide before them, taking on a new aspect with the mountain far away and very dim.

  Fraley kept glancing behind her every little while to see if there was anyone coming. She made the excuse of talking to Billy, but the morning was new and no one else in the wide world seemed abroad at this hour.

  They were coming into country where the land was often fenced in little detached portions, and small bunches of cattle were kept meekly within bounds. Caroline discoursed wisely of the different ranches that could be seen as they went along, talked of the people who owned them and of cattle raising, as if it were a kind of sport. But mostly her talk was of the young men around and of their interest in herself. She found Fraley not very responsive on such topics but a good listener, and she grew more confidential and related how a man named Pierce Boyden came to see her sometimes and how he had kissed her the last time he came.

  “Oh, Caroline!” exclaimed Fraley startled out of her reticence. “I wouldn’t let him!”

  “Why not?” asked Caroline sharply.

  “Because—” said Fraley earnestly and then stopped, realizing what it might mean if she let this girl know she knew the man and hated him. “Because—why—men are—. Why, Caroline, do you know anything about his man? He may be a bad man, Caroline! Does your mother know he kissed you?”

  “Well, I guess not!” said Caroline proudly. “He wouldn’t do it in front of her. He’s a gentleman, he is. He has great big black eyes and black hair all sort of curly, and when he smiles he looks just like a king. You oughtta see him! He’s the best looker I ever saw.”

  “But he might be a cattle thief or something! He might kiss other girls.” Then mindful of the midnight conversation she had heard concerning Pierce and feeling she ought to give a warning she added, “I know a man like that—hair and eyes and all, and he—he kissed a girl down in a town beyond where we lived. She wasn’t a nice girl. Men talked about her at night. That is, they said awful things about him too. I wish you wouldn’t do it, Caroline. Your mother has been good to me, an’ I wish you wouldn’t do it. You tell her what I said about that man, and you ask her if she thinks you ought to, won’t you?” she pleaded earnestly.

  “Like fun I will!” snapped Caroline angrily. “An’ don’t you go to writing no high-flown letters to her about it neither ur I’ll tell her you did it because you are jealous of me, see?”

  “Oh, Caroline,” said Fraley in distress, “you wouldn’t!”

  “Sure I would,” said Caroline brightly. “Just you try me!”

  “But it wouldn’t be true,” said Fraley quietly, as if that robbed the threat of its sting.

  “I’m not so sure it ain’t,” said Caroline impishly, eyeing her companion with a furtive look. “I’ll bet you know him!”

  But Fraley’s answer after a long wait surprised her. “Yes, I know him.”

  “You do?” The other girl was startled. “Mebbe he’s kissed you, too.”

  “Never!” said Fraley, and her face was grim with indignation. “I would rather be dead than have him touch me!”

  Caroline laughed. “Gosh!” she said. “Well, you would. You’re one of them saints. I didn’t know they had ’em round here s’near ta Rogues Valley. Well, I ain’t; I’m jes’ flesh an’ blood an’ b’lieve me, I know a handsome man when I see him.”

  From then on Caroline had the conversation all to herself, and she rattled on proudly about the devotion of the different young men she had met until Fraley turned her thoughts away in self-defense.

  The country round w
ould have been interesting to her if she had not been in a frenzy of fear. Now she had given herself away to this girl who had no sense of loyalty to a confidence, and here she was almost as badly off as if she had just started from her home mountain. If Pierce found out she had been here he would get the word to Brand at once, and Brand would call the gang and ride after her. There was no use in trying to doubt that. Brand thought she was his property. The last few sentences she had heard him and his drunken companions speak on the terrible night of her escape left no doubt whatever what her fate would be if she were caught. She could not even claim the protection of this good woman with whom she had passed the night. Brand and his crew were stronger than a mere woman. He would ride and take her, that would be all of it, and after that she was better dead!

  What could she do about it? Would any appeal reach this girl as it seemed to have her mother?

  The town, as they called it, turned out to be five houses widely scattered, a general store, and a station. Caroline drew up at the station with a flourish of her broken whip, and a smile and a cheerful word for the two men who stood on the platform, which was returned in none too courteous a manner.

  “Well, here you be,” said Caroline. “You got a hour and some minutes to wait, I reckon, but I’ll hev to be gettin’ back. Pierce Boyden said he might be comin’ down ta-day, an’ I don’t wantta miss him.”

  But here Billy rose. “Aw, Car’line! Maw said you wasta wait till her train come in. I ain’t seen it only twice in my life. I wanna wait!”

  “You shet up!” said the elder sister in an ugly tone. “You shet up er I’ll tell maw you’re a crybaby!”

  But Fraley was already getting out of the wagon. Caroline’s decision had brought intense relief to her. She did not mean to wait around any station and give Pierce or Brand a chance to waylay her, and if Caroline went now it would make her way much easier.

  “No, don’t wait,” she said eagerly. “I don’t need anyone. It was kind of you to bring me, and I hope I’ll be able sometime to repay you.”