Mary Garland

“ Oliver Frost, she was a girl in a picturesque attitude; to the coachmen on the carriages she was a possible nurse-girl; to the policeman she was a speck on the lake-front lawn.
Something of this mood was with her still when she went in to dinner with Mary. Mary ushered the way, beaming with joy. Rose never looked more beautiful nor more imperious. The Boston man was properly astonished; the Jew salesman smiled till his chubby face seemed not able to contain his gladness. Mr. Taylor, a gaunt young man, alone seemed unmoved; the morose teacher gave a sigh of sad envy. ”

“ That solves my problem. I know these cattlemen, they know me. I am the white chief of Talfeather's people. If you can stand it to live there with me, Mary, I will go. We can do good; the women need some one like you to teach 'em to do things."
Mary's altruistic nature began to glow. "Do you think so, Harold? Could I be of use?"
"Of use? Why, Mary, those poor squaws and their children need you worse than they need a God. I know, for I've lived among 'em."
"Then I will go," she said, and out of the gray cloud the sun broke and shone from the west across the great lonely plains. ”

“ You're very kind, Mary Compton. I don't deserve it."
"You deserve the world," cried the adoring girl. "If I had your figure and complexion I'd make the universe wait on me."
In spite of all this fervor of praise Rose felt herself to be a very dejected and spiritless beauty. She was irritated and angry with the nagging of strange sights and sounds and smells. The air seemed laden with disease and filth. It was all so far from the coolly with its purple hills looming against the sapphire sunset sky. ”

“ Suddenly they missed Jack and the father. They were alone and free to speak their most important words. Harold seized upon the opportunity with most disconcerting directness.
"I've come for you, Mary," he said, as if he had not hitherto uttered a word, and his voice aroused some mysterious vibration within her bosom. "I'm not a cattle king; I have nothing but two horses, a couple of guns, and a saddle—but all the same, here I am. I got lonesome for you, and at last I took the back trail to find out whether you had forgot me or not." ”

“ It represented Mary Garland standing there with eyes in which the horror seemed slowly, slowly to expire, and hanging, motionless hands which at last made no resistance when his own offered to take them. When, of old, a man was burnt at the stake it was cruel to have to be present ”

“ In the cool lusciousness of the June morning we met Grandpa, and as we entered the gate of the Homestead (which Mary Isabel only dimly remembered) , I said, "This is your home, daughter, you belong here."
"Can I pick the flowers? Can I walk on the grass?" she asked quickly.
"Yes, pick all you want. You can roll on the grass if you wish."
Too excited to eat any breakfast, she ran from posy bed to posy bed, and from tree to tree, indefatigable as a bee or humming-bird. At five in the afternoon Zulime and Constance came.
In the weeks which followed I renewed my childhood. ”

“ Some lovely girls looking crisp as columbines or plains' poppies looked at him from the doors of the parlor cars. They suggested Mary to him, of course, and made him realize how far he was getting from the range.
These dainty girls looked and acted like some of those he had seen in Cañon City and the Springs. They walked with the same step and held their dresses the same way. That must be the fashion, he thought. The men of the town were less solemn than plainsmen, they smiled oftener and they joked more easily. Mose wondered how so many of them made a living in one place. ”

“ Our fireplace was complete! Breathlessly we waited the signal to apply the match.
At five o'clock the mason from the chimney top cheerily called, "Let 'er go!"
Striking a match I handed it to Zulime. She touched it to the shavings. Our chimney took life. It drew! It roared!!
Pulling the curtains close, to shut out the waning daylight, we drew our chairs about our hearth whereon the golden firelight was playing. We forgot our troubles, and Mary Isabel pointing her pink, inch-long forefinger at it, laughed with glee. Never again would she sit above a black hole in the floor to warm her toes. ”

“ Rose was astonished at Mary, generally so self-contained. She talked as if she had volumes to tell and but short minutes to tell them in. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes grew deep and dark.
"He's here reading law, but he don't need to work. He's got a share in a big mine out there somewhere, which he discovered himself. He just thought he'd try civilization awhile, he said, and so he came to Chicago. He kind o' pokes around the law school (it's in our building—that's where I saw him first, in the elevator) , just as an excuse. He hates the law; he told me so. He comes in to see me sometimes. ”

“ The school-ma'am said she thought it was terrible to have a man come into your room—the same room you sleep in—but I told her it depended on the man. That settled her, for Owen—I mean Mr. Taylor—don't like her."
Rose listened in silence to this torrent of words from Mary. Her mind was naturally fictive, and she divined the immense world suggested by the girl's incoherent sentences. The mysterious had come to her friend—the "one man of all the world," apparently—a striking personality, quite suited to Mary, with her practical ways and love of fun. ”

“ She was the country girl in the city, and would be so until death. If she felt disposed, she chewed gum or ate an apple on the street like a boy, and she walked on the Lake Shore Sunday evening with Owen, unconscious (and uncaring) of the servant-girls and their lovers seated on every bench.
So Rose had grown away from her friend. She felt it dimly the first week. She felt it vividly on the morning after the concert, and it troubled her. Her life was too subtle, too complicated and too problematic for honest, freckle-faced, broad-cheeked Mary to analyze. ”

“ It was short and to the point.
"DEAR HARRY: If you can get away come back to Marmion and see Mary again. She wants to see you bad. I don't know what has happened but I think she has given King his walking papers—and all on account of you. I know it. It can't be anybody else. She talked of you the entire evening. O man! but she was beautiful. She sang for me but her mind was away in the mountains. I could see that. It was her interest in you made her so nice to me. Now that's the God's truth. Come back and get her.
"Yours in haste,
"JACK".
Mose tingled with the sudden joy of it. ”

“ Mary ceased to smile, but her brows remained level.
"You men seem to think that all women are fond only of the quiet things, but it isn't true. We like the big deeds in the open air, too. I'd like to see a cattle ranch and take a look at a 'round-up,' though I don't know exactly what that means."
"Well, we're not on the round-up all the time," he said, relaxing a little. "It's pretty quiet part of the time; that is, quiet for our country. But then, you're always on a horse and you're out in the air on the plains with the mountains in sight. ”

“ It's all right for you to go up for a couple of months and lie about in a hammock, but you take a place like Castle Rock all the year round! It's worse than the farm. Gossip! They talk every rag of news to smithereens, don't they, Rose?"
Rose nodded.
"And then the people! They're the cullin's. All the bright boys and girls go to Madison and Chicago or Dakota, and then the rest marry and intermarry, and have idiot boys and freckle-faced girls!"
They all laughed. Mary was always extreme, no matter what her subject. ”

“ How will you do it?"
"On old Kintuck, if his legs don't wear off."
"How will you live?"
"Forage where I can. Turn to and help on a 'round-up,' or 'drive' where I can—shoot and fish—oh, I'll make it if it takes ten years."
"Then what?" Mary asked, with a curious intonation.
"Then I'll start for the Northwest," he replied after a little hesitation—"if I live. Of course the chances are I'll turn up my toes somewhere on the trail. A man is liable to make a miss-lick somewhere, but that's all in the game. A man had better die on the trail than in a dead furrow." ”

“ When it gets a little too tame for me I hit the trail for the mountains with an Indian. The Ogallalahs are my friends, and I'm going to spend the winter with them and then go into the West Elk country. I'm due to kill a grizzly this year and some mountain sheep." He was started now, and Mary had only to listen. "Before I stop, I'm going to know all there is to know of the Rocky Mountains. With ol' Kintuck and my Winchester I'm goin' to hit the sunset trail and hit it hard. There's nothing to keep me now," he said with a sudden glance at her. "It don't matter where I turn up or pitch camp. ”

“ Rose said little during the meal. She cordially hated Mr. Reed at once. His Boston accent annoyed her, and his brutal sarcasm upon the West aroused a new anger in her. She had never listened to such talk before. It didn't seem possible anybody could disparage the West.
"Civilization stops," he said during the meal, "after you leave the Hudson riveh."
"Some folks' manners stop after they leave the Hudson river, if they ever had any," Mary replied, and the Jew cackled joyously.
He defended Chicago. "It is the greatest place to do business in the world. ”

“ Harold spoke petulantly: "Go away and tell Mary I want her. It costs too much for her to sing, or else she'd come. These people won't let me get up, but Reynolds will be here soon and then something will rip wide open. They took my guns and my saddle. If I had old Kintuck here I could ride to Mary. She said she'd sing for me every Sunday. Look here, I want ice on my head. This pillow has been heated. I don't want a hot pillow—and I don't want my arms covered. Say, I wish you'd send word to old Jack. I don't know where he is, but he'd come—so will Reynolds. ”

“ Up till the day of their going he had made no effort to find Mary but had merely loitered in the streets in the daytime, and at night had visited the cheap theaters, not knowing the good from the bad. The city grew each day more vast and more hateful to him. The mere thought of being forced to earn a living in such a mad tumult made him shudder. The day that McCleary started West Harold went to see him off, and after they had shaken hands for the last time, Harold went to the ticket window and handed in his return coupon to the agent, saying, "I'd like to have you put that aside for me ”

“ I went up to Wagon Wheel and saw the princess, who has a big pull. She said she'd write you. Kintuck is well but getting lazy."
Mrs. Raimon wrote excitedly:
"DEAR FRIEND: Here is work for you to do. The agent at Sand Lake has asked to be relieved and I have written Senator Miller to have you appointed. He thought the idea excellent. We both believe your presence will quiet the cattlemen as well as Talfeather and his band. Will you accept?"
As Harold read, his body uplifted and his eyes grew stern. "See here, Mary, what do you think of this?" ”

“ Rose saw young Harris approaching, and a faintness took hold upon her limbs. He was at his princeliest estate—never would he be handsomer. His summer suit set close to his agile and sinewy figure. His cap rested lightly on his curly hair. His frank blue eyes were laughing, but his lips were tremulous with feeling.
"Well, Rose, all the girls have deserted me so I'm glad to find you alone," he said, but she knew he was never deserted. "Let's take a walk. The whole school seems to be divided off into teams. Looks as if the whole crowd would trot in double harness, don't it?" ”

“ My mother was an invalid; therefore, here am I, old and worn out at forty—that's why I worship youth and beauty. Health is the only heaven I know, and that is denied me." Here his smile died, his eyes softened, and his face set in impenetrable gravity. "Had I the power I would keep Viola Lambert forever young and forever virgin." Then, with a quick return to his [260] familiar drawl: "But I am going away without even killing Clarke, to plod my little round in Colorow and wait news from you. If I do not see you again, Mrs. Rice, keep me in mind. ”

“ He looked like a young lawyer, with his lean, dark face, smoothly shaven save for a little tuft on either cheek. His long hands were heavy-jointed with toil.
He listened to the bird singing and to the answering, chirping call of a girl's voice. His head drooped forward in deep reverie.
How beautiful her life is! his thought was. How absolutely without care or struggle! She knows no uncertainty such as I feel daily, hourly. She has never a doubt of daily food; the question of clothes has been a diversion for her, a worry of choice merely. Dirt, grime, she knows nothing of. ”

“ This was the day before Thanksgiving, and with a knowledge that the old folks were counting the hours which intervened, I wrested Zulime from her friends, and hurried her to the train. "Dear old mother! I know just how she is waiting and watching for you. We must not fail her."
It was just daylight as we stepped down from the Pullman at West Salem, but father was there! Seated in our "canopy-top surrey" and holding restless ramping Black Dolly to her place, he was too busy to glance at us, but I could tell, by the set of his head, that he was emotionally intense. ”

“ She unsaddled one pack-animal and spread some blankets on the grass. “Lie down and rest while I boil some coffee,” she commanded; and he obeyed, too tired to make pretension toward assisting.
Lying so, feeling the magic of the sun, hearing the music of the water, and watching the girl, he regained a serener mood, and when she came back with his food he thanked her for it with a glance before which her eyes fell. “I don’t see why you are so kind to me, I really believe you 219 like to do things for me.” Her head drooped to hide her face, and he went on: “Why do you care for me? Tell me!” ”