CHAPTER TWENTY
MRS. EVANS, bearing loaves and fishes, and accompanied by Mrs. Thomas, climbed the mountain road to Frances's cabin. Night was just falling, the blackness beginning to be spangled with stars.
"I jus' brought a loaf of salt-risin' bread, Missioner, I baked fresh this afternoon, an' some lemon-jelly cake. Marthy's a-carryin' it. Here, Marthy, put it down on the table."
"It's sure a frosty night," throwing off her cape and hood and accepting the chair Frances offered her, "an' it looks cosey as you please in here. Well, Missioner," with importance, "Marthy an' me took a little time off to bring you the news. Sadie Nitschkan's comin' home to-morrow. Some campers that's just got in brought the word to Jack."
"It's been six weeks an' more since Jack wrote her, commandin' her to come back the minute she got the letter, an' she ain't paid no more attention to it than if he was catnip," announced Mrs. Thomas.
"Well, she's goin' to get her lesson now," Mrs. Evans made the affirmation complacently. "It don't always do to go up against a husband when his blood's up."
"If Jack'll only stay firm." Mrs. Thomas's tone seemed to imply a pessimistic doubt of all men.
"Of course he'll stay firm," the tiny woman threw the Venus Colossal an impatient glance. "He's got the whole of us backin' him, ain't he? 'Course, Missioner," explanatorily, "we ain't really goin' to let him turn Sadie out, like he feels like now; but he's goin' to give her a good scare. She's got to be disciplined."
"Well, I hope she's enjoyed her gipsyin'," Mrs. Thomas spoke piously. "Say, Missioner, ain't it awful the way the Pearl's carryin' on with Bob Flick? Folks is talkin' somethin' fierce. There's goin' to be trouble sure." Her sparkling eyes expressed a relish of the dramatic possibilities in the situation. "Maybe," doubtingly, "Sadie can do somethin' with the Pearl when she comes back; but it's sure that no one else can. Somebody's goin' to tell Shock, sure as you're alive, an' everybody's wondering who it'll be. Most likely one of the boys 'll get drunk an' think it's his duty to speak up. Oh, it's an awful thing!" virtuously. "Bob, he's one of the cold, reckless kind, an' the Pearl, she's one of the hot, reckless kind. Lord!" with a shiver of pleasurable anticipation, "I'm scared."
"Yes, it's sure awful," assented Mrs. Evans absently. "Come, Marthy," rising, "we got to go home an' put the kids to bed. We got a hard day's work before us to-morrow with Sadie, an' we'd better be gettin' a good night's rest."
Frances strolled out onto her little bridge with her departing guests. The night was like black velvet, set thickly with the cold sparkle of stars. It seemed but a moment after her visitors made their last adieux that they were swallowed up in the gloom. Yet a few minutes later she was surprised to hear the patter of Mrs. Evans's feet on the bridge.
"I—I sent Marthy on, Missioner, an' jus' come back for a second." It was the only time Frances had ever seen the assured Mrs. Evans in the least embarrassed. "Missioner," even in' the dim light her cold little face showed agitation. "Missioner, I wasn't goin' to say a word to you, an' I made Marthy promise not to; but there's a good deal of talk—an' the bettin' stands even on you an' the English girl. You know the folks at Garvin's went away to-day; but some of the boys is bettin' that Walt won't let her stay long."
"Betting! On me! And Miss Sourrier?" Frances faltered, throwing back one arm and clutching the rail for support.
For once Mrs. Evans forgot her diplomacy and floundered in the bog of explanation. "Yes, as to which'll get—as to which Walt will—as to which will take Walt."
Frances's eyes blazed. Her mouth set in a bitter smile. It was with evident difficulty that she maintained her self-control; but she made no reply, only stood gazing down into the depths of the noisy, rushing stream.
After a moment of silence, Mrs. Evans stretched out her hand and laid it on the other woman's arm, the first demonstration of affection Frances had ever seen her show to anyone.
"Missioner," earnestly, "I know it ain't nothin' but gossip, I know how hard you're a-tryin' to save his soul" ignoring Frances's protesting hand. "Yes, I do. And there ain't no one that dares do any talkin' to me. You don't know what you mean to some of us, Missioner. You don't know what a comfort you are. You've made us feel like we can always turn to you in any of our troubles, no matter how fool they seem. All our lives long, us women have been taught that when things bothered us too much, we could go to a man in a black coat an' a white choker, an' perhaps, a good many of us found out that was all there was to his spirituality. An' often as not, when you'd laid out your poor, little troubles before him, lookin' like mountains to you, you could see, for all he tried to hide it, that they was just about the size of marbles to him. Then he'd swell out his chest, an' talk pious to you down in his throat, an' you usual went home feelin' like there was no comfort nowheres, 'cause 'course you'd been taught to believe that God's jus' a bigger man, an' you felt sore at your heart an' like you wanted to kick yourself, that is, if you was strong. If you was a weak sister an' wanted to be hectored, you took his words for law an' gospel.
"Why, look here, Missioner! Suppose you was a man. Do you believe the trouble between me an' Sile would ever have been patched up yet? Not a bit of it; but you handled that job slick. God knows you did. An' ever since, I been a-thinkin, a kind o' hopin', a 'most believin' that it was a woman that was comin' some day to comfort women. Not one of them mushy things that they call all heart, an' that mourns with them that mourns, like Marthy Thomas; but a woman with a head as well as a heart. A woman that knows enough to understand things, that's had her experiences and knows where she is at; that don't stand willing to cut the work she's chose, for the first man that looks at her. Not that kind; but a woman that's onto things. Missioner, you don't think I'm too fresh, do you?" taking alarm at Frances's continued silence. "I don't mean to be no smart Aleck. I oughtn't to have told you about that bettin'."
Mrs. Evans to plead! It smote Frances like a blow. "I should think," she murmured in a muffled voice, "I should think that my calling " she stopped abruptly, too honest not to see the irony of claiming protection from her calling, when she gave free rein to conduct.
"But you ain't mad, Missioner? You forgive my speakin'?"
"Forgive!" The shadow of a smile deepened the pain of Frances's eyes. "Perhaps you are my best friend. Perhaps in all the world you are my best friend."
A little later when Garvin strode up the hillside, his heart singing the words he meant that his lips should soon utter—"They've gone, Missioner. Thank God they've gone!"—he was surprised and immeasurably disappointed to find the windows of the little cabin dark. Half-heartedly, he knocked once or twice upon the door and then turned dejectedly away. Yet, had he but known it, each rap had vibrated through the heart of the Missionary, who crouched inside, her hand upon the latch, ceaselessly and speechlessly murmuring: "A woman that don't stand willing to cut the work she's chose for the first man that looks at her."
It was dawn before, still dressed, she threw herself upon her cot and almost immediately fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion. But if she continued to sleep far into the next morning, the village was early astir, for Zenith was of course aware of the stand Mr. Nitschkan had taken, and was fully determined to see the result of the impending struggle for supremacy; even though discretion urged to view it from a safe seclusion.
There were some souls of excitable imagination who predicted the complete demolishment of the Nitschkan home before the argument was satisfactorily concluded. But the public was doomed to disappointment in the first instance as to any show of spectacular demonstration on Mr. Nitschkan's part.
Carolling blithely and with no apparent premonition of trouble, Mrs. Nitschkan arrived at her gate. Bob with nimble fingers untied the frayed rope which held in place that frail portal, and his mother, leading the burros, passed through. No welcoming shouts of children greeted her; but the smoke curling whitely from the chimney, and the unshuttered windows, proclaimed the house inhabited. Otherwise there was no sign of life.
Within the kitchen, however, was a hastily assembled council, consisting of Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Landvetter. They sat about the stove, whereon hissed a coffeepot, while Mr. Nitschkan strode restlessly about the room. Mrs. Evans, who, in common with the other women, appeared slightly paler than usual, with a somewhat strained expression about the eyes, was just about to pour herself a cup of coffee, when there came a thunderous knocking upon the door, causing her hand to shake so violently that she spilled half the contents of the pot on the floor.
"Now, Jack," she cautioned, as Mr. Nitschkan stood irresolute, "remember, you got to be firm. Give her a good fright an' make her promise there shan't be no more gipsyin' in hers 'fore you let her in."
"At least till the kids is old enough to go with her," added Mrs. Thomas sotto voce.
Nitschkan approached the window and pulling down the small, upper sash, leaned his elbows upon it and thrust out his bearded face.
"Hello, Jack," called his wife cheerily, "the door's stuck. Pull it open fer me, will you?"
"The door ain't stuck, Sadie," remarked Mr. Nitschkan, with solemn severity; "it's locked, an' it's locked a-purpose."
"Locked a-purpose!" echoed Sadie, pausing in her efforts to enter and peering at him as if she doubted the evidence of her senses. "Well, it had better get unlocked mighty quick then, 'fore I sail in. That's all I got to say."
"Be firm, Jack, you're a-doin' splendid," encouraged Mrs. Evans.
"It'll stay locked," repeated Mr. Nitschkan slowly and impressively, "until you promise me that onct an' fer all you're done with this gipsyin' that's made you the talk of the camp."
Mrs. Nitschkan turned suddenly and gazed at her lord and master, with shrewd and twinkling eyes.
"Who's in there with you Jack?" she asked quickly. "Effie Evans an' Marthy Thomas, I'll bet my head."
Nitschkan ignored the question, and scowled darkly at the blue ridges of the mountains beyond him.
His wife laughed uproariously. "Oh, Effie Evans!" she called breezily through the keyhole. "Wait till you want help in some little game, an' then see where you're at! Is old fat pillow of a Landvetter in there, too? 'Course; I kin smell the coffee. An' dear little Marthy!" she lisped affectedly. "Here Bob, boy!" turning to her son, "get the axe offen Jerry an' Mommie'll break the door."
Mr. Nitschkan turned apprehensively to the council about the stove.
"Tell her," commanded Mrs. Evans, with a pale smile of triumph, "that if she does, it'll be the winter talk in the camp, how you turned her out. Stand pat now, Jack, an' you've got her."
"Folks won't be talkin' of nothin' else all winter, Sadie, if you break that door in," admonished her husband, returning to the window. "They'll say I turned you off."
"That's true enough," acquiesced Sadie, pausing in her operations. This sweet reasonableness on her part caused the ladies about the stove to exchange alarmed glances. "Well, Bob," with what was apparently a sigh of capitulation, "I guess there ain't nothin' fer you an' me to do but camp in the yard. Get to work an' we'll unload the burros."
"Come away from that window, Jack, an' don't take no notice of her," adjured Mrs. Evans, who had watched with growing uneasiness Nitschkan's increasing interest in the unpacking going on without.
But he was deaf to admonitions. "Lord! she's got a good bear's skin, an' some mighty nice lookin' venison."
"Ain't that jus' like a man, an' after all we done fer him, too!" Mrs. Thomas sunk her voice to a disgusted whisper. "We jus' got to get him away from there."
"Jack, remember what you been through," she pleaded, her hand upon his arm.
"I sure got to show her I'm master here," he said firmly, but as though repeating a lesson which had lost its first, fresh significance. "That's what I got to do."
"You bet you have, Jack," urged the ladies.
"Oh, Jack, Jack," called Sadie's voice outside. "I seen the Weeks boys in North Park an' they told me how they got even at last with the Thompson tribe. It would make a kiote laugh to hear tell of it."
A slow grin overspread Mr. Nitschkan's face. "Did you hear that?" he asked the council. "The Weekses have got even at last with them Thompsons. Gosh! I'd like to know how!"
"Say, Jack, come to the window and see this mess of trout. Bob, boy, build Mommie a fire, an' she'll get some of 'em ready now. Here!" The rollicking, contagious laughter echoed without, as she held up a fish for her husband's inspection. The sunlight fell upon its speckled sides, and as Sadie drew out the sedgy grass with which it was stuffed, Nitschkan sighed audibly:
"Nice, fresh trout, an' Sadie kin fry 'em to a turn," he muttered wistfully.
"Now, Jack, you want to be firm," reminded Mrs. Thomas. "You don't want to be led away from your duty by no such vanities as trout an' venison."
Deaf to her words, he edged nearer the window. "She's got somethin' in a handkercher," in a tense whisper.
Seductively near drew Mrs. Nitschkan.
"Jack, Jack," holding up some objects tied in a red bandana handkerchief. "Oh, Jack!" she teased. "You'd give them pop eyes of yourn to know what I got in here. Look,"—untying the knots of the handkerchief and holding up three or four gleaming nuggets in her hand,—"what do you think of this? Free gold, Jack, free gold! An' this nice little piece of peacock!"
Mr. Nitschkan breathed hard. "Who passed 'em along to you, Sadie?" he asked with an attempt at carelessness.
"Ol' Mr. Rock give 'em to me," she laughed. "I staked out a nice little claim or so, Jack, an' posted my notice all right, you bet."
"Hand 'em up, Sadie, to let me see," Nitschkan stretched out itching figers, "or wait—wait till I unbar the door."
He tore at the lock. "Come on in, Sadie," as the door swung back. "The—the girls"—becoming aware of his advisers in the background—"the girls is here to welcome you." Then he fled.
Cornered, routed, but defiant, the council stood. The guard might die; but there was "no surrender" written on every line of the firm little face of Mrs. Evans as she stood with folded arms, facing her friend.
Mrs. Landvetter, glancing up from the depths of her rocking chair, went on with her knitting; Mrs. Thomas, on the contrary, bustled about with a busy show of occupation.
"I'll pour you a steamin' cup of coffee this minute, Sadie. Mis' Landvetter, will you pass me the cream jug," she babbled, and then encountering Mrs. Nitschkan's glance, she sank down upon a stool and began to weep.
The mountain woman stood in the doorway, her head lowered, her right arm with its tightened fist swinging back and forth by her side. All the easy good nature had vanished from her face.
"Where's my kids, Effie Evans?" Her voice was hoarse.
"They're to my house, Sadie Nitschkan," laconically, coolly.
"What fer?" like the shot of a pistol.
"To keep 'em out of the way while we got Jack to scare you a spell."
The pathos of a betrayed trust was in Mrs. Nitschkan's eyes. "I'm a-goin' to drive you all outen here in about a minute," slowly rolling up her sleeves, "with some marks on you that you didn't have when you come; but first, I'm going to know what you done it for. You an' me, Effie Evans, has hung together for ten years. Your wits and my fists has made us the leaders of society in Zenith, an' up to a minute ago I'd 'a' done up anybody that'd say you wasn't a white woman."
The tiny beads of sweat were standing out on Mrs. Evans's brow; but her eyes never wavered from the other woman's face.
"I couldn't stand your kids, Sadie Nitschkan; two months an' more of 'em has drove me wild!"
"My kids!" with infinite surprise. "Why, they's no better behaved young ones anywhere."
Mrs. Thomas suddenly ceased her convulsive sobbing. "Supposin', Sadie Nitschkan," she cried. "Supposin' you had to look after Mis' Evans's' or Mis' Landvetter's kids fer two or three months?"
A faint smile twinkled in Mrs. Nitschkan's eyes. "Oh, Marthy," she mocked, "ask me somep'n easy. Why, I'd 'a' broke their heads, that's what I'd 'a' done. But say, my children wasn't that bad? Speak up, Landvetter; they wasn't as bad as the Thomas or Evans kids now, was they?"
"Dey vas vorse," affirmed Mrs. Landvetter. "Ten t'ousand times vorse as de Thomases or EfFenses. Mein vas goot."
Mrs. Nitschkan fell against the door, the tears trickling down her cheeks, her laughter ringing through the cabin. "It's all right, girls," buoyantly, boisterously, and accepting the olive branch of a cup of tea which Mrs. Thomas made haste to offer. "We'll let bygones be bygones."
Then with the elaborate courtesy usual from the victorious general to his defeated opponents: "You girls must 'a' done slick work to get Jack to act like he done; but where you slipped up, women dear, was in miscalculatin' the heart of man."