Billy Louise

“ Billy Louise had prepared herself to apologize—in some roundabout manner which would effect a reconciliation without hurting her pride too much—and she was rather chagrined to discover that Ward seemed neither to expect or to want any apology.
"Sorry I gotta go, William," he volunteered whimsically soon after breakfast. "But I gotta dig. Say, Wilhemina, if I stay away long enough, will you come after me again?"
"A wise man," said Billy Louise evasively, "may do a foolish thing once, but only a fool does it twice." ”

“ Ward took up the story and told her much; more than she had ever dreamed could be. I can't repeat any of it; what he said was for Billy Louise to know and none other.
It was late when she finally rose from the stool and lighted the lamp because her mother woke and called to her. Ward went out to turn the horses into the stable and fasten the door. He should have sheltered them two hours before. Billy Louise should long ago have made tea and toast for her mother, for that matter. But when life's big, bitter problems confront one, little things are usually forgotten. ”

“ So lonesome that there were times when life looked absolutely worthless; when the blue devils made him their plaything, and he saw Billy Louise looking scornfully upon him and loving some other man better; when he saw his name blackened by the suspicion that he was a rustler—preying upon his neighbors' cattle; when he saw Buck Olney laughing in derision of his mercy and fixing fresh evidence against him to confound him utterly. ”

“ Billy Louise had a wise little brain, for all she idealized life and her surroundings out of all proportion to reality. She told herself that if she married Ward with her doubts alive, her misery would be far greater than if she gave him up, except as a friend. Of course, her ideals stepped in there with an impracticable compromise. She brought back the Ward Warren of her "pretend" life. She dreamed of him as a mutely adoring friend who stood and worshiped her from afar, and because of his sins could not cross the line of friendship. ”

“ Billy Louise slashed at a ripening branch of service berries with her quirt and scared Blue so that he lunged against the romancer. "You men seem to think the girl has nothing to say about it! You think we just sit and smile and wait for somebody to snap his fingers, and we jump at him! ”

“ Ward grunted a word that sounded like "damchump."
"Nothing of the kind!" Billy Louise flew to the defense of her "pretend." "He knew just exactly how a girl likes to be made love to. And, anyway, you've been doing the selfsame thing yourself, Ward Warren, till just now. And—"
"Oh, have I?"
"Yes, you have. And I might have known better than to—to startle you. You always, eternally, do something nobody'd ever dream of your doing. The first time, when I threw that chip, you pulled a gun on me—" The voice of Billy Louise squeezed down to a wisp of a whisper. ”

“ She told herself so, many times. "You've got to go back!" she repeated, as if to a second person. "You can't be such a fool; you've got to go back. And you've got to go inside. You've got to do it."
So Billy Louise went back to the cabin, slowly, with shaking legs and a heart that fluttered and stopped, fluttered and jumped and stopped, and made her stagger as she walked. She reached the doorstep and stood there with her palms pressing hard against her cheeks again. "You've got to do it. You've got to!" she whispered to herself commandingly.
She never doubted that Ward was inside. ”

“ They had nearly fifteen miles to go, and they rode at a walk; and a man and a maid can say a good deal at such a time. But I don't think they would like to have it all repeated. Their thoughts ranged far: back over the past and far into the future, and clung close to the miracle of love that had brought them together. There is one thing which Billy Louise, even in her most self-revealing mood, did not tell Ward, and that is her doubts of him. ”

“ Every time I do a thing right or pay off a note or anything, he looks as if—"
"I wouldn't be a mite surprised, Billy Louise," said her mother, with a flash of amused comprehension, "if you kinda misread Ward sometimes. Them eyes of his are pretty keen, and they see a whole lot; but they ain't easy to read, for all that. I guess Ward don't think it's anything surprising that you're getting along so well, Billy Louise. I surmise he knows you're a better manager than a lot of men are."
"I'm not the manager Charlie Fox is, though." Billy Louise was frankly envious. ”

“ Miss Louise, do you have flying cattle in Idaho?"
"You think they were driven off, don't you?" Billy Louise asked a question with the words, and made a statement of it with her tone, which was a trick of hers.
Charlie Fox shook his head, but his eyes did not complete the denial. "Miss Louise, I'd work every other theory to death before I'd admit that possibility! I don't know all of my neighbors so very well, but I should hesitate a long, long time—"
"It needn't have been a neighbor. There are lots of strange men passing through the country. ”

“ Billy Louise meant only to wean him from his bitterness against Life, and to convince him, by a somewhat roundabout method since at heart she was scared to death of his aloofness, that he was not "old lady Fortune's football" as he sometimes pessimistically declared. At thirteen she had mixed him with her dreams and led him by difficult trails to safety from the imaginary enemies that pursued him. ”

“ Billy Louise did not own such a breeder of blues as a lazy liver, her nerves were in fine working order, and her digestion was perfect; and it is a well-known fact that a trouble must be born of reality rather than imagination, if it would ride far behind the cantle. ”

“ Billy Louise, by a visible effort, brought the situation down to earth. She twisted herself free and went over to the stove and saved a frying-pan of potatoes from burning to a crisp.
"I don't know about your soul," she said, glancing back at him. "I happen to have two or three thoughts in mine. One is that I'm half starved. The second is that you're not acting a bit nice, under the circumstances; no perfectly polite young man makes love to a girl when she is supposedly helpless and under his protection." ”

“ Ward turned a gloomy pair of eyes upon her. "What's the rush? Do you think it isn't proper—"
"It's always proper to do what is right and helpful and kind," said Billy Louise with dignity, because she had made up her mind and was trying not to weaken. "I've lived in this country all my life, and I guess my reputation will stand this little strain," she went on lightly, "even if anyone finds it out. I've got to go, that's all. Those people in the Cove—" It was eloquent of her stern justice that she could not bring herself to speak them by name. ”

“ You're only proving that in the human problem you're raised to— Stop looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy Louise leaned over the table and caught at his nearest hand, which was a closed fist. With her own little fingers digging persistently into the tensed muscles, she pried the fist open. "Ward, behave yourself, or I'll go straight home!" She held his straightened fingers in her own and drew a sharp breath because they lay inert—dead things so far as any response came to her clasp ”

“ Billy Hastings had called—called excitedly—and Billy was known to furnish nearly all the third-grade thrills there were. So the next moment Louise was stooping her way under the hawthorn boughs in answer to her playfellow's summons.
Billy was not alone in the green grotto in which Louise presently found herself, for nearly half the third-grade members were there. There was wide-eyed Tinsie Willis, with her little frilly skirts bristling with excitement, with Mamie Moore swallowing to keep back hysterical tears, and Sadie and Lallie Raiford, with their backs to each other for safe-keeping. ”

“ The children started and looked about apprehensively. Luke's words always carried weight by reason of the fact that he had been two years in the third grade and ought to know what he was talking about if he didn't.
"Yes," chimed in Billy, coming close to Louise again and speaking in his most dramatic [Pg 56] tone. "Just you dare to draw a deep breath, and he'll tell the Kaiser on you!"
Louise gasped—a short, a curtailed little gasp. Never till the Great War should be over would she breathe from her diaphragm again!
"Oh-o-o-o, Louise!" from round-eyed Tinsie Willis. ”

“ I had to work two hours over that fiend tail of mine, and these whiskers are just as bad.”
“It’ll be worse when you have real ones,” remarked Louise consolingly. She was acting as putter-on-of-finishing-touches. There was a dressing-tent apiece for the girls and boys, and Billy was on the outside of his, trying to arrange the mustache to his liking by means of a small mirror pinned to the canvas.
“At least I won’t have to worry about their sticking on,” was his reply.
“There,” said Louise, “they’ll do now.”
“Billy and Adelaide wanted!” called Edith. ”

“ A knock on the door and Bob Dulaney and Billy McGraw entered. Fresh tea was brewed for the two young men and then they were told of the scheme Mary Louise had evolved concerning the Electric Treating Tryst.
“Nothing astonishes me,” confessed Billy. “You girls take an old barn of a place and turn it into a thriving business and actually make a living, make a living as it were on other166 persons’ laziness and now you are threatening to feed the multitude. You can do anything!” ”

“ Every day that this huge house is kept running is draining your already depleted bank account just that much more than it can stand. Let’s begin tomorrow to sort and ‘pick rags’ and get the house ready for a tenant. There is a lot of work connected with it and we’d best begin immediately.”
132 CHAPTER XII
MARY LOUISE MOVES
In the language of Bob Dulaney and Billy McGraw, “Little O’Gorman was a humdinger when she got started.” Elizabeth was left to run the Higgledy Piggledy Shop with some help from Irene and Josie took up her abode with Mary Louise to do what she called “pick rags.” ”

“ Becky felt that the Copes were a charming pair. When she answered Randy's letter she spoke of them.
"Louise adores her brother, and she thinks he would be a great artist if he would take himself seriously. But neither of them seems to take anything seriously. They always seem to be laughing at the world in a quiet way. Louise is not pretty, but she gives an effect of beauty—— She wears a big gray cape and a black velvet tam, and I am not sure that the color in her cheeks is real. She is different from other people, but it doesn't seem to be a pose. ”

“ She had dressed carefully in silver and white with her pearls and silver slippers. Louise came in and looked at her. "I haven't any grand and gorgeous things, you know. And I fancy your Mrs. Prime will be rather gorgeous."
"It suits her," said Becky, "but after this she is going to be different." She told Louise about the ranch and the linen frocks and the frilled aprons. "She is going to make herself over. I wonder if it will be a success."
"It doesn't fit in with my theories," said Louise. "I think it is much better if people marry each other ready-made." ”

“ You had to break the pony's heart before she could be what she is—the nicest little thing that ever was broken by a man's hand; and Louise, she had to have her heart broken too. Your father and I were almost of an age—he was two years older, and we had our youth together. And you and Louise are so wonderfully young, too. Be good to her, son. She's never been married. She was only in prison with that old lizard. What a horrible mouth he had! It's shut now," she added remorselessly. Opening the door of the other room, she disappeared.
A moment later, Louise entered upon Orlando. ”

“ Born of a delicate and overworked mother, and an impulsive, hard, imaginative father, who did not look with favor upon her coming into the world, Louise was from childhood a neurotic, one of the race of over-sensitive women that in later days industrialism was to bring in such great numbers into the world. ”

“ It’s difficult to think of Billy as an angel, isn’t it, Miss Verity, but I can assure you he looked like one, then! He was so happy in his ‘job,’ and because he was happy he took peace and happiness with him, and left them behind him. And then you called him, and the ‘job’ went to the wall. The old folk sit and wait for him, night after night, and he does not come. There is one old woman he used to call his mother, who puts up her wrinkled hands and cries as the hours go by——” He took a quick step to her side, his voice breaking into passionate contrition. ”

“ Joe's on Lucy."
"Damn Lucy! Do you go to mother's room—"
"What for?"
"Oh, she keeps her money in it, and Mrs. Penhallow paid her in advance the day she left."
"Can't do it," said Billy, who had strict orders not to leave Lamb alone.
"Oh, just look in the top drawer. She keeps a bit of money rolled up in one of her stockings. That will get me a little whisky and you lots of tobacco."
"Can't do it," said Billy. "Want me to steal? Won't do it."
"Then I'll get even with you some day."
Billy laughed. "Why I could lick you—like Mr. John licked the doctor's son. Gosh! there goes Pole's wagon." ”

“ Billy and his father faced each other—one was sixteen, the other forty. They did not stand looking at each other as father and son, but as man and man.
"Billy," said his father, "you don't remember your mother; she died while you were still a baby. If she were living, I would not hint of this to you, but—I go to South Africa with the very first Canadian contingent. You are the best bugler in Canada. What do you want to do?"
For an instant Billy was speechless. His nerves shook with a boy's first fear of battle. His old gun-shyness had him in its grip. ”