Rosetta Luce Gilchrist

“ Tibby was looking out into the expanse dreamily, her eyes narrowed and yellow in the sunlight.
“What do you call the restraints of society life?” questioned Mark suddenly.
“The necessity of putting on war paint and feathers. The necessity of hiding behind a mask of conventionality and pleasant phrases, of fine clothes and fine speeches. I enjoy it immensely—immensely.” Tibby shut her lips tightly to emphasize her words. “But after all, it is artificial, and the only fun is seeing through it all. It’s really more fun to be a spectator than an actor in a comedy. ”

“ Probably there had never been that true unity of soul with soul that should constitute the real marriage, but Elinor Wylie’s husband had always seemed so proud of her, and fond, that until this winter she had felt no lack in his affection. But, alas, so small a thing will turn and divide a shallow stream, and when turned, how far apart the separate branches may run. And the ideal marriage of true unity of thought and purpose is so rarely consummated. ”

“ But Tibby’s eyes are half-closed, and she sees beyond her own reflection the plain family room at the farm-house, with its bright rag-carpet on the floor and its chintz-covered chairs. She sees her gray-haired father dozing in his chair tilted back against the wall, with his hands clasped before him. She sees Tom sleeping, stretched out upon the old, green-covered lounge. She sees little Bess and Ted in their night-gowns scampering up the closed-in stairway to their beds. Ah, she is not there to give them their good-night kiss when they have repeated their “Now I lay me down to sleep.” ”

“ It really seemed as if Tibby made him fall. You can imagine her delight at his mishap.”
“That is the way of womankind,” said Mr. Wylie, smiling. “They laugh at our downfalls, unless we drag them down with us, which we’re apt to do. Tibby is no exception; but seriously, do not pet her too much, or she may forget what is due to her position in life. She must not appear impertinent.” ”

“ I pity Alice.”
Nathan felt like retorting that he pitied Mark, but he forbore.
“I confess,” he said, “I did feel as if Russell was almost sacrilegious in assuming to duplicate one of Christ’s miracles, but I can see no harm in Mark’s exposing the means employed.”
“One thing, Nathan, I want to speak of now, while I think of it. If I should die first, I will, if there is such a thing as the spirit returning to earth—come back to you. Now let us determine upon a test, and see how I shall come in such a way as to be convincing to you if you are left behind. We will tell no living soul what it is. ”

“ We can even store up their words and songs and reecho them at will. A strange force is this invisible current of which we are now learning the Alpha. What its ultimate possibilities are, who shall determine? With it the opposing forces of nature are made subservient and the very winds can be made messengers between physical and sentient beings.
We look at the trolley car passing our door and wonder at the power that propels it. Little by little we are opening our souls to the reception of beliefs in the invisible powers of nature. ”

“ To-day he had claimed Tibby for a ride to the post, and as they came cantering slowly along the soft gray turf, Tibby with her riding-hat tipped back from her wide, smooth forehead, her feline eyes half closed from the sun’s bright rays, her dark hair partly escaped from comb and pin, and fluttering in curled rings about her face, her red lips half parted above the white teeth, she looked to the man a disheveled Hebe, too adorable, too incomprehensible to withstand. ”

“ McCleary was all right until she became a convert to this accursed spiritism,” said Mark. “I have known her for years. She used to live near my old home in Iowa, and was a good, capable woman; but she seems now to have no interest in anything that does not come from the other world. If Esther should die and become a spirit she might become an object of her interest and solicitude. I am utterly disgusted with Russell and all of his nonsense about spirit manifestations, and revelations, and the like. In my opinion, all the spirit he communes with is the spirit of evil, his Satanic majesty. ”

“ Lissa permitted Nathan to seat her, and at the word the gentle little creature lifted her ears and stared across the prairie at an easy lope, most delightful to the rider. Lissa was charmed.
“How delightful! How intelligent! How easy!” she cried, as the pony, obeying the wave of her hand, turned back toward the house. “As easy as a rocking-chair. How I shall enjoy going about with her.”
“She is perfectly safe, and never scares at anything except farming implements. She usually prefers to make a detour whenever she sees a drag or plow. ”

“ Wylie, how lovely it is to breathe freely again,” she murmured as, after removing her wraps with the dust and stain of travel, she stood, later in the day, outside the cabin door and watched the red sun touch the prairie’s distant rim.
“Yes, Tibby, you will be a child again with all these country wilds about you. You will have chickens, cows, and horses to your heart’s content. Mark, do you remember how we youngsters used to go out to grandpa’s?” ”

“ We can feel His wonderful love and care in the beautiful earth and flowers about us, can perceive His righteous law in the retributive justice of all nature, and His might and omnipotence in the thunder-storm and cyclone. Ah, it is a wonderful thing to live, to know that in a little while we shall have crossed to the other side, beyond time and eternity. ”

“ But when Tibby behaved worst there lurked a smile of conscious power in the unrevealed depths of Donald’s gray eyes, much to the girl’s vexation and discomfiture, while he remained outwardly unruffled. He had entered the race to win, and his nature was buoyant and strong. Why need he be discouraged? Physically strong, handsome, and athletic, he was possessed of average ability, enjoyed a good income, and his future looked promising. ”

“ With supernatural strength, evolved from her terror, with the wet sacking she beats back the ravening flames madly, frantically, and with all the force of over-strained muscles and fear-nerved energy she fights the merciless element, until at last, blinded by smoke, and scorched and blackened, she turns toward the house, and flies with all the strength left her, her only hope now to get her baby and run with it to the only haven of safety, the black soil of the plowed land. ”

“ If Lissa would only become reconciled to the fact that the child cannot come to her again, she would soon recover from her sorrow,” he said to Mark Cramer, as after an unusually trying hour with her he walked slowly with his brother-in-law toward the latter’s house. “It is certainly wrong to try to recall the dead.”
“I agree with you. God pity those who have no other belief than spiritism.”
“Amen!” replied Nathan. “It has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Poor Lissa keeps herself and every one around her wretched by constantly talking of her lost one. ”

“ Whether she had, in the depth of her despair, taken her own life; whether, to free herself from the noxious presence of Russell, she had disguised herself and fled to parts unknown; whether she had been spirited away by some of his familiar spectres, or whether, in his complete obsession of her, the unprincipled scoundrel had abducted her, could not be learned. ”

“ McCleary, will you try to keep Professor Russell from your house? This is all trouble of his making. He has gained possession of your daughter’s will until she is obliged to wander out upon the prairie at night if he bids her to do so. She is completely in his power, poor girl. Only careful watchfulness upon your part and the expulsion of the villain from the community can avail. Look at your child, Mr. McCleary, and see if you will permit him to destroy her!” said Mark, with feeling.
He pointed to the sobbing face of Esther, now pressed against the back of the chair, and ghastly in its grief. ”

“ I prefer the teachings of Christ and his disciples to any disembodied spirit, good or bad,—the Professor admits that evil as well as good spirits commune with mortals,—and I never have seen any really good results from a belief in spiritism. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ I find that in many instances its believers become its victims, and either end their days in a mad-house or permit themselves to drift into free-love doctrines or some other demoralizing fad, until they become unprincipled and lose the respect of their fellow-men. ”

“ Think of Robbie hearing you! There is surely some mistake.”
“It’s a mistake he shall rue,” he groaned.
But Mark’s anger gave way to fear as hour after hour went by and Elinor only awoke from one swoon to go into another. Mark paced the floor, distracted with anxiety.
“Poor Nellie, I dread the hour when she shall finally awaken. Heaven is merciful to her in thus keeping her unconscious,” he repeated again and again. “What can have made the change in Horace Wylie? I should have supposed him too proud a man to have entered a divorce court, even if their life had been unpleasant. ”

“ One never knows what he can do until he is put to the test. But I think we have come about forty-five miles to-day. Yonder is the town. They are just lighting it. How pleasant it looks, doesn’t it, this evidence of life after so many miles of uninhabited wilds.”
“The ride has been perfectly delightful,” said Lissa. “I never better enjoyed a day in my life.” ”

“ Nathan said. “Over this road many emigrants have toiled along, suffering and dying, many of them at the hands of the Indians. Do you see that ridge of earth which seems to have been artificially thrown up there? That was undoubtedly a sort of breastwork hastily made by a party of emigrants who were assaulted at this place.”
Lissa shuddered. “Can it be possible I am really in this wild land of which I have read. I wonder if any were killed here, and if the ground has been soaked with their blood. How strange it all seems! I can imagine so much since seeing that Indian. ”

“ Lissa has grown to love this Western home, and as we see her now, tripping about the floor of her humble cabin, there is a maturer look in her bright face and pliant figure, and though she is paler in cheek and lip, her smile speaks the joy in her heart. ”

“ The bereaved woman shrank from meeting her society friends in Forest City, and to go to the Pacific Slope was to put her in proximity to her recreant husband, and—sadder to contemplate—his newly wedded wife. And Elinor had listened to her brother’s persuasions to spend the winter in their 289home. Thus, much to Donald’s satisfaction, Tibby had remained to be his daily companion in this isolated region. The world, with its modern pleasures, seemed far away from them. He need fear no competitor while she remained here. For this reason Donald could bide his time, free from anxious disquietude. ”

“ Wylie questioned.
“By a footstep at the door,” continued Mrs. Lucien. “Before any death or evil to any one of the house we are startled by hearing a footstep come to the door, step heavily once or twice and then vanish from sound and sight. If the door is opened no one is visible to mortal eyes. Sometimes it comes more than once the same evening, and we know the evil is near at hand.” Mrs. Lucien spoke in a low, soft voice, of indescribable sadness, as she continued: “It has come to me several times, once before a trouble worse than death. ”

“ It seemed to float through the air and hover suspended before the cabinet. Mrs. Lucien had arisen and moved forward with outstretched arms.
“Mamma, mamma!” a bird-like voice repeated, and fluttering like a bird in the air the tiny hands brushed the white face of the entranced woman. Then by its side a second figure appeared, larger but less distinct. For a moment they hovered flutteringly before her, then disappeared, and the usher led the now nearly fainting Mrs. Lucien to her seat.
Another figure appeared, a man. A woman behind Mrs. Wylie arose and went forward. ”

“ Donald replied in a dry tone.
“So I thought. When one can neither talk nor breathe, one has time for serious reflection. Now, please, Mr. Bartram, don’t say anything about the delight of my friends under the circumstances, for I think I have heard something of the kind before. I wrote notes to them.”
“That must have been delightful.”
“For them or me?”
“Both. Miss Waring, why are you so unlike other girls?”
Tibby opened her eyes to their widest extent.
“You alarm me, Mr. Bartram,” she said. “How am I different? I’ll wager two bits that I know. It’s these freckles on the side of my nose.” ”

“ Tibby hears the detonation answered by a fainter sound at their left.
“We are all right, child. Alice is signaling us. Try and hold out a little longer.” And Tibby feels the motion of the horse as it sways beneath her, and is dimly conscious of a sense of warmth and relief unutterable. And she forgets the storm, the danger, the oppression of death which was upon her, and sinks away into a half-sleeping state, from which she is aroused only when, at the door of Mark’s home, Donald lifts her from the saddle and carries her into shelter somewhere. ”