Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 9

The matter was decided there. "You send her to me, when she gets ready, and I'll have Mrs. Thatcher look after her for a week or so, till we find her a place to stay."

Rose was in a fever of excitement. She saw the men talking there, and caught disconnected words as she came and went about the table. At last she saw Dr. Thatcher rise to go. She approached him timorously.

"Well, Rose, when you come to Madison you must come to our house. Mrs.

Thatcher will be glad to see you." She could not utter a word in thanks.

After he had gone Rose turned to her father with a swift appeal.

"Oh, pappa, am I going?"

He smiled a little. "We'll see when the time comes, Rosie."

She knew what that meant and she leaped with a joy swift as flame. John sat silently looking at the wall, his arm flung over the back of his chair. He wondered why she should feel so happy at the thought of leaving home, when to him it was as bitter as death to think of losing her for a single day out of his life.

Thenceforward the world began to open to Rose. Every sign of spring was doubly significant; the warm sun, the pa.s.sing of wild-fowl, the first robin, the green gra.s.s, the fall of the frost, all appealed to her with a power which transcended words. All she did was only preparation for her great career beyond the Ridge.

She pictured the world outside in colors of such splendor that the romance of her story-papers seemed weak and pale.

Out there in the world was William De Lisle. Out there were ladies with white faces and heavy-lidded, haughty eyes, in carriages and in ball-rooms. Out there was battle for her, and from her quiet coule battle seemed somehow alluring.

CHAPTER VIII

LEAVING HOME

As the time for leaving came on Rose had hours of depression, wherein she wondered if it were worth while. Sometimes it began when she noticed a fugitive look of sorrow on her father's face, and sometimes it was at parting with some of her girl friends, and sometimes it was at thought of Carl. She had spent a year in the Siding in preparation for the work in Madison, and the time of her adventure with the world was near.

Carl came to be a disturbing force during those last few weeks. He had been a factor in all of the days of her life. Almost without thought on her part she had relied upon him. She had run to him for any sort of material help, precisely as to a brother, and now he was a man and would not be easily set aside.

He generally drove her to meeting on Sunday, and they loitered on the shady stretches of the coule roads. He generally put his arm around her, and she permitted it because it was the way all the young fellows did but she really never considered him in the light of a possible husband.

Most of the girls were precocious in the direction of marriage, and brought all their little allurements to bear with the same object in view which directs the coquetry of a city belle. At sixteen they had beaux, at seventeen many of them actually married and at eighteen they might often be seen riding to town with their husbands, covered with dust, clasping wailing babes in their arms; at twenty they were often thin and bent in the shoulders, and flat and stiff in the hips, sallow and querulous wives of slovenly, careless husbands.

Rose did not hold that Carl had any claim upon her. The incidents of two years before were lived down, both by herself and Carl, for as manhood and womanhood came to them they put away all that which they had done in the thoughtlessness of childhood. To Rose it was an unpleasant memory, because a.s.sociated with her father's grief. She supposed Carl to feel in the same way about it, and so no allusion to it was ever made by any one.

But Carl was grown to be a great stalwart young fellow, with the blood and sinew of a man, and the pa.s.sions of a man were developing in his rather thick head. The arm which he laid along the buggy seat was less pa.s.sive and respectful of late. It clutched in upon her at times; though she shook herself angrily each time, he merely laughed.

So matters stood when she told him she was going away to school in Madison.

"That so?" he said, and not much else till the next Sunday. With all the week to think about it in, he began to ask himself in current slang, "Where do I come in?"

So the next time they drove together he tried again to tighten his arm about her while he said:

"I'll miss you, Rosie."

"So'll pap," she said.

There was a long pause, then he said: "What's the use o' going away anyhow? I thought you an' me was goin' to be married when we grew up."

She shook herself free. "We ain't grown up yet."

"I guess we won't never get our growth, then," he said with a chuckle; "you don't need that extra schoolin' any more'n I do."

They rode in silence down the beautiful valley, with the charm of early autumn lying over it.

"You mustn't go and forget me off there in Madison," he said, giving her a squeeze.

"Carl, you stop that! You mustn't do that! I'll jump out o' the buggy if you do that again!"

There was genuine anger in her voice.

"Why, it's all right, Rosie; ain't we engaged?"

"No, we're not, and we never will be, either."

There was a note in her voice that struck through even Carl's thick thought. He did not reply, but continued to dwell upon that reply until its entire meaning came to him. Then his face became pitiful to see. It was usually round and red, but now it looked long and heavy and bitter.

He was so infertile of phrases he could only say:

"Then we might as well drive right back home."

"Well, you made me say it," she went on in a softer tone, being much moved by the change in his face. "I like you, Carl, but I'm not a-goin'

to promise anything. I'll see when I come back, after I graduate."

They drove on. She was not much more of a talker than he, and so they rode in silence that was sullen on Carl's part. At the gate she relented a little. "Won't you come in, Carl?"

"No, I guess not," he said shortly, and drove off.

After she went in the house she felt more and more the injustice of her anger. "If he hadn't pinched me like that," she said to herself.

She went to work at her packing again, putting in things she would not possibly have any use for. As she worked the ache and weariness at her heart increased, and when they called her to supper the tears were falling again like a shower. It was a silent and miserable meal, though the doors and windows were open and the pleasant sounds of the farm-yard came in, and the red light of the setting sun shone in magically warm and mellow.

John ate slowly, his eyes fixed on his plate. Rose ate not at all and looked out of the window, with big tears rolling childishly down her cheeks. She didn't want to go at all now. Her home seemed all at once so comfortable and happy and safe!

John looked up and saw her tears, and immediately he was choked and could not eat.

"There, there! Rosie, don't cry. We'll be all right, and you'll be back almost 'fore you know it. June comes early in the summer, you know."

They were both so childlike they did not consider it possible to come home before the year was up. She came around and knelt down by his side and buried her face on his knees.

"I wish I hadn't promised to go," she wailed; "I don't want to go one bit. I want to stay with you."

He understood her feeling and soothed her and diverted her, though tears would have been a relief to him.

She went with him out to the barn, and she cried over the bossies and the horses, and said good-by to them under her breath, so that her father might not hear.

When she went to bed she lay down disconsolate and miserable. O it was so hard to go, and it was hard not to go. Life was not so simple as it had seemed before. Why did this great fear rise up in her heart? Why should she have this terrible revulsion at the last moment? So she thought and thought. Her only stay in the midst of chaos was Dr.

Thatcher. William De Lisle was very far away, like a cold white star.