The Wind Before the Dawn Part 4

"Never you mind, ma, I'm going to teach school in another year, and I'll help pay the interest; and we'll get out of debt, too, somehow."

Mrs. Farnshaw brightened.

"I hadn't thought of that!" she said. "I'm glad you're willin' t' help out. I had thought maybe you'd get me one of them new nubies after you got some money of your own." She went into the other room to lay out the black dress, which death had sanctified some months before, for use on the morrow. The opportunity to wear the emblems of mourning turned her childish mind away from the object of her journey, and left her as unconscious as the young girl herself that the mortgage had extended from the land to the lives of herself and her husband, and that in that promise it had laid its withering hand on the future of her child as well.

The promise of a.s.sistance had been lightly given; unearned money is always easily spent; besides, a teacher's salary seemed rolling wealth to the girl who had never had a whole dollar in her life. The question of paying the next year's interest was for the time settled. The next morning the healthy young mind was much more largely concerned with the appearance of her mother in the new black dress than with either the mourning it represented or the mortgage which occasioned its presence. She sensed dimly that a mortgage was a calamity, but her vigorous youth refused to concern itself for long with a disaster so far removed as the next year.

But though calamity might pursue Lizzie Farnshaw on one hand, true to her innate nature she handled fate in so masterful a manner that even poverty could not cheat her youth of all its prerogatives. In order to sufficiently nourish the teams which must be used in seeding, Josiah Farnshaw had been obliged to use a part of his seed corn for feed. In despair at the thought of not being able to plant all the land under cultivation, he was overjoyed to hear that a farmer by the name of Hornby, who lived twenty miles or more to the south, had a new and desirable variety which he was trying to exchange for cows with young calves by their sides. A calf was selected from their diminished herd, its mother tied behind the wagon which held it, and Lizzie taken along to a.s.sist in driving. The journey, though begun in early morning, was a tedious one, for the cow fretted, the day was hot, and the footsore and weary child was worn out long before the Hornby place was reached. It was after nine o'clock when they did arrive, the last five miles having been made with the added burden of a horse which seemed not at all well. Mr. Farnshaw would not even go into the house to eat supper, but asked the farmer to see that Lizzie was put to bed at once, while he remained with the sick horse. The best team had been chosen for this trip, in spite of the near approach of foaling time for one of the mares, because the other horses were too reduced by lack of food to drive so far.

After eating a bowl of bread and milk the tired child was taken to her room by Mrs. Hornby, and in spite of the ruffled curtains which adorned the windows and the other evidences of taste and refinement about her, she was soon fast asleep.

The next morning at daybreak the household of Nathan Hornby was astir. The first object upon which Lizzie's eyes fell was Susan Hornby herself, who had come to call her to breakfast.

"Your father took one of our horses and started right off home this morning. The one that was sick last night died and left a little colt. He said he thought he had better get the other one home at once, so he took ours. Come right into our room to wash and comb."

Lizzie was on her feet instantly and followed her hostess into the next room, making love to the neat white bows of her hostess' ap.r.o.n-strings as she went. What did she care about her father's departure without her when she could wash her face in a white bowl whose pitcher stood beside the washstand, and comb her hair before a looking-gla.s.s "where you could see your head and your belt at the same time?" But the combing was destined to be a lengthy process, for before the child had pulled her comb through the first lock attacked she saw reflected beside her face in that mirror an old-fas.h.i.+oned, black walnut secretary _full of books_! Lizzie Farnshaw had never seen a dozen books in one house in her life except school books, and here were rows of books that didn't look like any she had ever seen. She took her comb and walked over to the bookcase where she could read the t.i.tles and comb at the same time, the s.p.a.cious mirror, two whole feet in length, being forgotten in this much more desirable gift of fortune.

Susan Hornby's eyes twinkled with delight. In the five years she had been in Kansas she had never been able to persuade any one to read with her.

Here was a kindred spirit. She looked at the fifteen-year-old girl and was anxious to know how it happened that she was interested in books at her time of life.

"Do you like to read?"

The question was repeated, and once more she asked it before the child heard her.

"I guess you do," she laughed, answering her own question. "We'll have some good times before your father comes back for you. Come on to breakfast now--the men are waiting."

Lizzie Farnshaw fell naturally into her improved surroundings. The educating processes of reforming her language that year had also tended to improve the girl in other ways and it was with her straight brown hair gathered into neat braids, clean finger-nails, and a feeling of general self-respect that she approached Susan Hornby's white-clothed table and was introduced to Mr. Hornby and the hired men who were already seated there.

"Right glad t' see you. I been feedin' th' colt. It's about as likely a specimine as you be," was Nathan Hornby's salutation, and his handclasp was as hearty as his stubby fingered, hairy hands could make it.

Lizzie slipped quietly into her chair at his side, and stole a glance up at him again. All through the meal he found her eyes turning toward him curiously, and at last he said good-naturedly:

"I'll know you next time whether you do me or not."

The remark was a random one and meant nothing at all, except that he had been conscious of her close attention, but something in the way her gaze was withdrawn showed that whatever she had been thinking she wished to conceal it, and in the end it made Nathan Hornby really uncomfortable. The fact of the matter was that Nathan's language did not fit his surroundings. Susan Hornby's house was in advance of the country in which they lived, while her husband fitted the pioneer life he had chosen. Of this fact neither husband nor wife seemed to be conscious. Nathan was ten years older than the woman he had married. In accepting him she had accepted him as he was; later she had grown, but to her he remained the same; he was just Nathan, and needed no a.n.a.lysis. They lived and loved, and radiated the harmony which was theirs. The incongruities of their union were evident to this child, who was supersensitive about grammatical constructions, but their harmony was to be one of the strong lessons of her life. Lizzie was accustomed to ungrammatical language at home, but the atmosphere of this house made ignorance of good form noticeable. She liked Mr. Hornby, but she wondered a little about his a.s.sociation with his wife and her home. She went with him to see the colt after breakfast and remarked upon his neat barnyard in a manner which lifted the cloud upon his face; he had had a feeling that he did not somehow come up to her expectations.

The little colt nosed about his hand looking for food, and Nathan laughed.

"It's just like th' human critter o' that age--wants t' try everything in its mouth," he said, trying to find a topic of conversation.

Again Nathan Hornby caught a flicker of surprise in Lizzie Farnshaw's eye, and again he was disconcerted.

"Wonder what I done t' set that child t' lookin' at me so funny?" he asked himself as he went to the field later, and being big-hearted and ignorant was unaware that a man could hamstring himself by an ungrammatical phrase.

All day Susan Hornby read with the young girl and questioned her to get into touch with her life and thought, and when night came was wildly enthusiastic about her.

"Nate, she's worth a lift," she said to her husband after Lizzie had again been tucked into bed. "Let's take her with us to Topeka this fall and put her into the high school. She's--she's just the age our Katie would have been. She says some teacher told her she was ready for the high school."

"Better wait till I'm elected, Sue," Nathan replied, and then, seeing Susan's face cloud over with disappointment, added more cheerfully:

"Of course I don't care if you have the child, but you mustn't get to countin' on this thing. That's th' trouble with these here fool politics: they get folks t' countin' on things that can't come around."

Long after his wife was asleep, however, he mused upon the prospects of going to Topeka, and for her sake he wanted to go. Nathan Hornby always spoke of his chances of being elected to the legislature of his state deprecatingly. He swaggered and pretended to be indifferent, but the worm of desire burrowed deeper every time Topeka was mentioned. The very fact that he was uneducated, and, as the Democrats had said, unfit, made him desire it the more. Criticism had aroused the spirit of contest in him.

Also he wanted Susan, now that she had begun to plan for it, to have it.

Nathan Hornby knew that the woman he had married was his superior, and loved her for it. Masculine jealousy he did not know. He would have been sincerely glad to have had her elected to the legislature of Kansas instead of himself.

"It's like Sue t' want t' take th' girl," he meditated, the next day in the cornfield. "She'll see Katie in every girl she sees for th' rest of 'er days, I reckon. I wouldn't 'a' had no show at Topeka, nohow, if she hadn't 'a' made Wallace feel good 'bout that crazy thing he calls 'is wife. Curious how big things hinge on little ones. Now Sue had no more idea o' gettin' a nomination t' th' legislature for me than that hen she was foolin' with this mornin'." Later, he remembered the thing that had worried him before the subject of Topeka came up. "Wonder what I done that set that youngster t' lookin' at me so funny?"

Mrs. Hornby had not set her heart on going to Topeka foolishly, but she wanted to go and it entered into all her plans. She did not tell the young girl of her plans at once, but waited for her to make her place in Nathan's heart, as she was sure she would do. On that point the girl succeeded surprisingly. Her knowledge of horses, of harness, of farm subjects in general made good soil for conversation with her host, and her love for the motherless colt called her to the barn and made special openings for communications. Nathan called the colt, which was of the feminine gender, Pat, because its upper lip was so long, and that too the girl enjoyed, and entered into the joke by softening the name to Patsie.

They were good friends. Having decided to befriend her, the man's interest in her increased. She was to be theirs. The sense of possession grew with both husband and wife. Already they had cast their lot with the child, and when at last they put the question of the high school to her, the friends.h.i.+p was firmly welded by the extravagance of its reception.

"Think of it! Think of it! Only think of it! I didn't know how it was going to come about, but I was sure I was going to get it somehow!" the young girl cried, dancing about the room excitedly. "Whenever I was afraid something was going to keep me from it, I used to say, 'I will! I will! I will go to high school!' Oh, isn't it too lovely! Do you think my saying it made any difference?" she asked eagerly; and the quaint couple, who were born two generations in advance of the birth cry of New Thought, laughed innocently and made no reply.

When the floodgates of surprise and emotion were opened, and she began to talk of her hopes and fears, it was but natural that she should speak of her struggles for personal improvement, though this was instinctively done when Mr. Hornby was absent.

Curiously enough, some of her points of information were as helpful to Susan Hornby as they had been to her. Mrs. Hornby knew the rules of good grammar, but many little observances of table manners had changed since her youth. She read and was well informed on general topics of the day, but her life for more than fifteen years had been spent with Nathan and with the hired men who ate at her table, and she had become careless of small things, so that she listened with an amused smile, but with real profit as well, to Lizzie's confidences that "You shouldn't cross your knife and fork on your plate when you are through eating, like the hired men, but lay them side by side, neat and straight"; that "You shouldn't eat with your knife, neither," and that "To sip your coffee out of your saucer with a noise like gra.s.shoppers' wings was just awful!" She, too, was brus.h.i.+ng up to go to Topeka, and while much in advance of her husband or any of her a.s.sociates in society matters, she had lived the life of the farm, and to the end of her existence would be conscious of the inequalities of her education. Of this she said nothing to the child, but listened and remembered. Occasionally she reminded the girl that they might not go to Topeka, but even as she warned she was quickening the subconscious mind to aid in recording any fact which might be advantageous when she herself got there, and her love for the child grew. The girl was part of the scheme. In a week she had become one of the family.

At the end of the week Mr. Farnshaw did not appear; farm matters had detained him, so that the opportunity for a closer acquaintance with his daughter was permitted. Under Mrs. Hornby the child blossomed naturally.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned secretary was the young girl's delight. Seeing her shaking in silent glee over "David Copperfield" one night, and remembering her eager pursuit of intellectual things, Mrs. Hornby remarked to her husband, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The world of to-day would add to Susan Hornby's little speech, "Not only as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," but "So shall he live, and do, and be surrounded."

This simple daughter of the farm, the herds, and the homesteaded hills of bleak and barren Kansas, where the educated and intellectual of earth were as much foreigners as the inhabitants of far off Russia or Hindustan, had by her thought not only prepared herself for the life she coveted, but had compelled the opportunity to enter upon her travels therein. When Mr.

Farnshaw arrived, Mrs. Hornby was fortunate in the form of her request to take his daughter with her, and it was arranged that if they went to Topeka the child should be a member of their household.

"We'll be just as good to her as if she were our own," she promised, and then added reflectively, "We're going to call her her full name too.

Elizabeth was my mother's name. It's so much prettier than Lizzie."

Under any other circ.u.mstances Mr. Farnshaw would have seen symptoms of being "stuck-up" in the change of name, but Elizabeth had been his mother's name, and although he had little recollection of his mother, and had never heard her called by her given name, he had seen it writ large on her tombstone, and, his eye having become accustomed to the word, his ear fell naturally into line with its p.r.o.nunciation; besides, his daughter was to be a school-teacher, and was to sign contracts like a man, and must have a proper sort of name. She was to live in the house of a member of the legislature, too, and already called him and his wife "Uncle" and "Aunt." Mr. Farnshaw tasted pride and found it a sweet morsel.

Election day came the first week in November and Nathan was successful.

With the high school year in view, they moved to Topeka the next week. It was as if they were literally to educate their Katie. A slight disappointment awaited them. Though they were ready the young girl did not come immediately.

According to the dilatory methods of the Farnshaw household, Elizabeth--she had been supported by her father when the boys had shown an inclination to laugh her out of the change of name--was three weeks later yet in going. The eager girl urged at home that she would be behind her cla.s.ses if she went into school so late in the term, but her parents, who knew nothing of school requirements, refused to let her go till the corn was all husked and everything snug for the winter, arguing that so much stock had been lost the winter before that every care must be taken of what was left. Tears at the prospect of such a handicap made no impression, and it was not till December that the child and her father set off in the farm wagon for Topeka, two days distant. Railroad fare was not to be considered, and two new dresses and a new pair of shoes--not side-laces--were all the additions to her wardrobe.

Susan Hornby was much annoyed at the delay, but met the young girl with open arms when she arrived.

She was less happy in accosting Mr. Farnshaw.

"Why in this world did you keep her so late? Half the year is gone!" was her luckless remark to him.

"She's doin' mighty well t' get t' come at all," Mr. Farnshaw replied, taking instant offence. "I'm th' only man in our part of th' country that's givin' 'is childern any show at th' high school at all, I can tell you. I knew I wouldn't get no thanks for it from th' beginnin'. That's th'

way with things nowadays," was his reply.

"Oh, well, we all know you have needed her, and that it's hard to spare a child on the farm, but we were so anxious to have her have all that could be got out of this year," Mrs. Hornby said, divided between a desire to scold the man and a real disinclination to hurt any one. So much valuable time had been lost. She saw that she must be politic for Elizabeth's sake, however, for the child's appearance told the experienced woman that she must keep him in a good humour and inveigle him into giving her a little money for clothes.

"We'll just make the best of the time that is left, little girl," Mrs.

Hornby said cheerfully, and in that only added to the impression already made, for Mr. Farnshaw remembered his daughter's tears, and the feeling grew that instead of being lauded for what he considered a great sacrifice on his part, he was coming in for a blame wholly unexpected, and that this woman was siding with the girl and going to spoil her. People of the farm, more than any other cla.s.s, resent being blamed, and Josiah Farnshaw was an extreme representative of his cla.s.s. He had come to Topeka delighted with himself because of the fine opportunities he was giving his daughter, and here was this woman at the first word finding fault because he had not done better; it was no wonder that children were not satisfied with anything a man could give them!

There was now no possibility of Elizabeth entering school till after Christmas, and Aunt Susan turned her attention to efforts to get the most out of the time they would have to reorganize the poorly constructed dresses. She was considerate of Mr. Farnshaw's evident sensitiveness, seeing also that he had no real comprehension of the damage done by the delay, and made him comfortable by urging him to stay on after he was really ready to go home. So successful was she that he forgot for the time he was in her presence that all was not in his favour, and she was able to induce him to give all that he was able to give toward the improvements she suggested in his daughter's wearing apparel. Elizabeth was surprised at the ready response to demands made upon his purse, but here again Mrs.

Hornby left a sting, wholly unintended and at the time not recognized by Mr. Farnshaw himself, but remembered by him later and never forgotten after it was once fixed firmly in his mind. Aunt Susan, concerned for the entrance of the child into the company of those of her own age, pointed out to her father the gayly dressed girls of Elizabeth's age, and suggested that a new coat would be an absolute necessity. Mr. Farnshaw had given Mrs. Hornby all the money he had with him except four dollars, and his wife had given him a list of groceries to be purchased in the city. It rather pleased him to use the money toward his daughter's adornment and it tickled his pride as well to give his last cent toward her education. Mrs.