Margaret Penrose

“ She wished with all her heart that their shopping was over, and then she could insist upon taking the train immediately out of New York, even if she had to sink to the abhorred subterfuge of playing ill, and so frightening Tavia.
She wished they might move to some other hotel; but if they did that an explanation must be made to Aunt Winnie as well as to Tavia. It seemed to Dorothy that she blushed all over—fairly burned—whenever she thought of discussing her feelings regarding Garry Knapp.
Never before in her experience had Dorothy Dale been so quickly and so favorably impressed by a man. ”

“ They all piled upon the double-ripper—Joe and Roger, too—and after the first two or three slides, the runners became freed of rust and the heavy sled fairly flew.
“Oh! this is great—great!” cried Tavia. “It’s just like flying. I always did want to fly up into the blue empyrean——”
They were then resting at the top of the hill. Nat turned over on his back upon the sled, struggled with all four limbs, and uttered a soul-searching: “Woof! woof! Ow-row-row! Woof!”
“Get up, silly!” ordered Tavia. “Whenever I have any flight of fancy you always make it fall flat.” ”

“ I have been spoiled,” said Tavia, her voice growing lugubrious. “I want wealth—luxuries—and everything good that money buys. Yes, Doro, when it comes my time to become engaged, I must get a wealthy man or none at all. I shall be put up at auction——”
“Tavia! How you talk! Ridiculous!” exclaimed Dorothy. “You talk like a heathen.”
“Am one when it comes to money matters,” groaned the girl. “I have got to marry money——”
“If Nat White were as poor as a church mouse, you’d marry him in a minute!”
“Oh—er—well,” sighed Tavia, “Nat is not going to ask me, I am afraid.” ”

“ You really will be rich when you are twenty-one,” Tavia reminded her. “I tell you, that young man was troubled a heap when he learned from me that you were so well off. If you had been a poor girl—if you had been me, for instance—he would never have left New York City without knowing his fate. I could see it in his eyes.”
“Oh, Tavia!” gasped Dorothy, with clasped hands and shining eyes. ”

“ Tavia for the first time realized that Dorothy had found interest and evidently a deep and abiding interest, in the young stranger from Desert City. It rather shocked her. Dorothy, of all persons, to become so very deeply interested in a man about whom they knew practically nothing.
Tavia suddenly realized that she knew more about him than Dorothy did. At least, she had been with Garry Knapp more than had her friend. It was Tavia who had had the two hours’ tête-à-tête with the Westerner at dinner on the evening before Garry Knapp departed so suddenly for the West. ”

“ But how can three people with all the revivifying flow of youth in their veins remain in the dumps, to use one of Tavia’s own illuminating expressions. Impossible! That tea at the Holyoke House, which began so miserably, scaled upward like the notes of a coloratura soprano until they were all three chatting and laughing like old friends. Even Tavia had to forget her miserable financial state.
Dorothy believed her first impression of G. Knapp had not been wrong. Indeed, he improved with every moment of increasing familiarity. ”

“ It looked as though a small stone in the road, or an uncertain jerk by Joe on the steering lines, would throw the contraption on which they rode sideways and dump out the boys.
“Enough to give one heart disease,” said Tavia. “I declare! small brothers are a nuisance. When I’m at home in Dalton I have to wear blinders so as not to see my kid brothers at their antics.”
“If something should happen, Tavia!” murmured Dorothy.
“Something is always happening. But not often is it something bad,” said Tavia, coolly. ”

“ Dorothy Dale said earnestly, “will give him the start in business life he needs. I know he has it in him to make good. He can expect no fortune from his uncle in Alaska, who is angry with him; he will never hear to using any of my money to help bring success; but in this way he will have his chance. I believe he will be independent in a few years.”
“And, meanwhile, what of you?” cried her aunt.
“I shall be waiting for him,” replied Dorothy with a smile that Tavia, had she seen it, would have pronounced “seraphic.”
“Major! did you ever hear of such talk from a girl?” gasped Aunt Winnie. ”

“ I admit the fact,” Dorothy said, trying to laugh off their questioning.
“Out with them,” advised her father. “Here are two old folks who have been solving problems all their lives. Maybe we can help.”
Dorothy laughed again. “Try this one,” she said, with her eyes upon the quartette “harmonizing” at the piano in dulcet tones, singing “Seeing Nellie Ho-o-ome.” “Which of our big boys does Tavia like best?”
“Goodness!” exclaimed her aunt, while the major chuckled mellowly. “Don’t you know, really, Dorothy? I was going to ask you. I thought, of course, Tavia confided everything to you.” ”

“ But in a moment the expression of Tavia Travers’ [Pg 112] face changed. Dorothy was pensively gazing in the glass; she had halted in her hair brushing, and Tavia knew that her chum neither saw her own reflection nor anything else pictured in the mirror. The mirror of her mind held Dorothy’s attention, and Tavia could easily guess the vision there. A tall, broad-shouldered, broad-hatted young man with a frank and handsome face and a ready smile that dimpled one bronzed cheek ever so little and wrinkled the outer corners of his clear, far-seeing eyes.
Garry Knapp! ”

“ Jennie Hapgood peered out for an instant, saw Ned and Nat, and darted back with an exclamatory “Oh!”
“I—I thought something had happened,” she faintly said, closing her door all but a crack.
“Something has,” declared Joe.
“What is it, boys?” asked Dorothy, appearing fully dressed from her room. “The ice?”
“What ice?” demanded Tavia. “Has the iceman come so early? Tell him to leave a big ten-cent piece.”
“Huh!” grunted Roger, “there’s a whole lot more than a ten-cent piece outside, and you’d see it if you’d put up your shade. The whole world’s ice-covered.”
“So it is,” Joe agreed. ”

“ She replied to Lance at once, explaining more fully about Garry Knapp, the land he was about to sell, and the fact that Eastern schemers were trying to obtain possession of Knapp’s ranch for wheat land and at a price far below its real worth.
Satisfaction, Tavia might feel in this attempt to help Dorothy; but everything else in the world was colored blue—very blue, indeed!
When one’s ear has become used to the clatter of a noisy little windmill, for instance, and the wind suddenly ceases and it remains calm, the cessation of the mill’s clatter is almost a shock to the nerves. ”

“ The chances of business life, especially for a young man with the small experience and the small capital he would have, were too great. To “tie a girl up” under such circumstances was a thing Garry could not contemplate and keep his self-respect. He would not, he told himself, be led even to admit by word or look that he desired to be Dorothy’s suitor.
To hide this desire during the few days he remained at The Cedars was the hardest task Garry Knapp had ever undertaken. ”

“ Tavia got up at last and began to move about her room. “Aren’t you going to get up ever again, Doro?” she asked. “Doesn’t the inner man call for sustenance? Or even the outer man? I’m just crazy to see Garry Knapp and ask him how he came by my bag.”
“Oh, Tavia! I wish you wouldn’t,” groaned Dorothy. ”

“ The coachman was general handy man about the White premises, and he was called upon to fix the furnace just as Tavia—and the horses—were ready.
“But who’ll drive me?” asked Tavia, looking askance at the spirited span that the boy from the stables was holding. “Goodness! aren’t they full of ginger?”
“Better wait till afternoon,” advised Dorothy.
“But they are all ready, and so am I. Besides,” said Tavia with a glance at Roger’s doleful face, “somebody smells disappointment.” ”

“ With a whoop of delight the two smaller boys, on their red coaster, whisked past the girls.
“Stop them!” shrieked the three in chorus.
Ned reached the edge of the gully bank first. His weight upon the cracking earth sent the slight barrier crashing over the brink. Just as they had supposed there was not a possible chance of Joe’s [Pg 128] stopping the sled when it came down to this perilous spot.
Tavia groaned and wrung her hands. Jennie burst out crying. Dorothy knew she could not help, yet she staggered after Ned and Nat, unable to remain inactive like the other girls. ”

“ By leaps and bounds it increased until, just as Tavia had once said, if Dorothy had been in Tavia’s financial situation Garry Knapp would never have left New York without first learning whether or not there was any possible chance of his winning the girl he knew he loved.
Now it was revealed to him that he had that chance—and bitterly did he regret the knowledge. For he gained it at the cost of his peace of mind.
It is one thing to long for the object forbidden us; it is quite another thing to know that we may claim that longed-for object if honor did not interfere. ”

“ Tavia said, suddenly serious. “I have done this thing myself. It is awful. Poor old daddy earns his money too hardly for me to throw it away. I should know better. I should have learned caution and economy by this time with you, my dear, as an example ever before me.
“Poor mother wastes money because she doesn’t know. I have had every advantage of a [Pg 39] bright and shining example,” and she pinched Dorothy’s arm as they entered the big store again. “If I have lost my money, I’ve lost it, and that’s the end of it. No new clothes for little Tavia—and serves her right!” ”

“ In a certain way it ages a girl to be left motherless as Dorothy Dale had been. She had been obliged to “play mother” herself so early that her maternal instincts were strongly and early developed.
Until the Dale family had come away from Dalton to live with Aunt Winnie at The Cedars, Dorothy had exercised her motherly oversight in the little family. Indeed, Roger scarcely knew any other mother than Dorothy, and Joe had almost forgotten her who had passed away soon after Roger was born. ”

“ Dorothy’s own cousins, Ned and Nat White, though collegians, and of what Tavia called “the harum-scarum type” like herself, were clean, upright fellows and possessed no low ideas or tastes. It seemed to Dorothy for a man to make the acquaintance of a strange girl on the street and talk with her as Garry Knapp seemed to have done, savored of a very coarse mind, indeed. ”

“ If Dorothy was demure and modest she was likewise determined. Her happiness, she felt, was at stake and although she could but admire the attitude Garry held upon this momentous question she did not feel that he was right.
“Why, what does it matter about money—mere money?” she said one night to Tavia, confessing everything when her chum had crept into her bed with her after the lights were out. “I believe I care for money less than he does.”
“You bet you do!” ejaculated Tavia, vigorously. “Just at present that young cowboy person is caring more for money than Ananias did. ”

“ Now that she was really grown up past the schoolgirl age and of a serious and thoughtful demeanor, even Aunt Winnie looked upon her as being much older than Tavia—and years older than the boys. That Ned and Nat were both several years Dorothy’s senior made no difference.
“Boys are to a degree irresponsible—and always are, no matter how old they become,” said Aunt Winnie. “But Dorothy——”
Her emphasis was approved by the major. “The little captain is some girl,” he said, chuckling. “Beg pardon! woman grown, eh, Sister?” ”

“ I shall next expect to see the heavens fall!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said her friend, as they reached the exit of the tube station and stepped out upon the sidewalk.
There was the Westerner already dickering with a boy to carry his bags.
“He likes to throw money away, too!” whispered Tavia. “I suppose we must be economical and carry ours.”
“As there seems to be no other boy in sight—yes,” laughed her friend.
“That young man gets the best of us every time,” complained Tavia under her breath.
“He is typically Western,” said Dorothy. “He is prompt.” ”

“ The reader may be sure that all Tavia said was to Dorothy’s glory. She had little need to explain to Garry Knapp what a beautiful character Dorothy Dale possessed. Tavia had told about Dorothy’s family, her Aunt Winnie’s wealth, the fortunes Major Dale now possessed both in the East and West, and the fact that when Dorothy came of age, at twenty-one, she would be wealthy in her own right. She had said all this to a young man who was struggling along as a cowpuncher on a Western ranch, and whose patrimony was a piece of rundown land that he could sell but for a song, as he admitted himself. ”

“ Oh, Dorothy! I didn’t want to tell you, for I hoped Lance might quickly find your Garry Knapp.”
“My Garry Knapp,” said Dorothy, blushing.
“Yes, my dear. Don’t dodge the fact. We all seem to be suddenly grown up. We are shucking our shells of maidenhood like crabs——”
“Tavia! Horrors! Don’t!” begged Dorothy.
“Don’t like my metaphor, dear?” chuckled [Pg 158] Tavia. But she was grim again in a moment, continuing: “No use dodging the fact, I repeat. You were interested in that man from the beginning. ”

“ You boys would never have crossed ahead of that train if I hadn’t done so.”
“Oh, Dorothy!” gasped Joe.
“Oh, Sister!” cried Roger.
“Tavia and I almost had heart disease,” the young woman told them seriously. “Engineers do not watch boys on country roads when they are guiding a great express train. It is a serious matter to control a train and to have the destinies of the passengers in one’s hands. The engineer is looking ahead—watching the rails and the roadbed. ”

“ You wouldn’t want a young man dangling after you who had thrown aside his self-respect for a girl. Now, would you?” And without waiting for an answer she continued: “Not that I approve of his foolishness. Some men are that way, however. Thank heaven I am not a man.”
“Oh! I’m glad you’re not, either,” confessed Dorothy with her soft lips now against Tavia’s cheek. ”

“ You see, we tie the chunks of suet up in the trees—and you ought to see the bluejays come after it!”
“Do come with us,” begged Roger again, who always found a double pleasure in having Dorothy attend them on any venture.
“I don’t know. You boys have grown so you can keep ahead of me,” laughed Dorothy. “Where are you going—how far?”
“Up to Snake Hill—there by the gully. Mr. Garry Knapp showed us last week,” Joe said. “He says he always feeds the birds in the winter time out where he lives.”
Dorothy smiled and nodded. “I should presume he did,” she said. “He is that kind—isn’t he, boys?” ”