Ollie

“ It struck both horse and rider like a big dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it. If the poor pony had been frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run before. Ollie had lost control of her, and could only cling to the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with the other. Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon. As they came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it looked like nothing so much as a hay-stack running away on its own legs. ”

“ You’re the bravest woman in the world!” she said.
Ollie looked up, wonder and disbelief struggling against the pathetic hopelessness in her eyes. Alice bent lower. She kissed the young widow’s pale forehead.
Joe was ashamed that he had forgotten Ollie. He saw tears come into Ollie’s eyes as she clung closer to Alice’s hand, and he heard the shocked gasping of women, and the grunts of men, and the stirring murmur of surprise which shook the crowd. He opened the little gate in the railing and went out. ”

“ Ollie’s brightening was only physical. In her heart she was as gloomily hopeless as before. After his first flash of fire she had not found much comfort or hope of comradeship in the boy, Joe Newbolt. He was so respectful in her presence, and so bashful, it seemed, that it almost made her uncomfortable to have him around.
Man that he was in stature, he appeared no more than a timid boy in understanding, and her little advances of friendliness, her little appeals for sympathy, all glanced from the unconscious armor of his youthful innocence and reserve. ”

“ The girl had been in a way conscious of the gradual change in Ollie's life, as it had been revealed in his letters, but she had failed to connect the change with her lover. The world into which young Stewart had gone, and by which he was being formed, was so foreign to the only world known to Sammy, that, while she realized in a dim way that he was undergoing a transformation, she still saw him in her mind as the backwoods boy. ”

“ Well, tomorrow they would bury Isom, and that would end it. Joe would be set free then, she thought, the future would be clear. So reasoning, she went to sleep in peace.
Ollie’s habit of early rising during the past year of her busy life made it impossible for her to sleep after daylight. For a while after waking next morning she lay enjoying that new phase of her enfranchisement. From that day forward there would be no need of rising with the dawn. Time was her own now; she could stretch like a lady who has servants to bring and take away, until the sun came into her chamber, if she choose. ”

“ The ants just have to feed them. Poor Ollie!
Munching this quinine cud of thought, he went up to bed. He was footsore from tramping the town for work. He had covered almost as much distance as Prue had danced. He was all in. She was just going out.
She kissed him good night, but he would not answer. She went to kiss her mother and Ollie and Horace. Ollie was practising shorthand, and kissed Prue with sorrowing patience. Horace dodged the kiss, but called her attention to an article in the evening paper:
"Say, Prue, if you want to get rich quick whyn't you charge for your tango advice? ”

“ Ollie was vain of her prettiness, as any woman is, only in her case there was no soul beneath it to give it ballast. Her beauty was pretty much surface comeliness, and it was all there was of her, like a great singer who sometimes is nothing but a voice.
Sol Greening was in the kitchen with his wife and his son’s wife and two of the more distant neighbor women who had remained overnight. The other men who had watched with Sol around Isom’s bier had gone off to dig a grave for the dead, after the neighborly custom there. ”

“ Ollie soon overtook her schoolmate, and putting her arm around her waist they walked on together.
"I could not imagine what you were carrying your school-books for," said Ollie. "You can't have been kept after school, for you always know your lessons so well."
"No," said Lucy, "I wasn't kept after, but I stayed myself. I couldn't get a sum in fractions right, and Miss Palmer said if I would wait till every one had gone she would show me about it. Now I know it, and I am going down to the beach. Don't you want to go too?"
"Oh, yes," said Ollie; "but I must take this sugar to mamma first. ”

“ Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his wheels had settled again to the road. At last he went back to the place where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the tree where Ollie’s bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own.
The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven of his regard, never to mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing, this shameful shadow at his door. ”

“ Ollie and I ploughed along with the sand still streaming, like long flaxen hair, off the wagon-wheels as they turned. In a little valley about ten o'clock Ollie shot his first grouse. We saw more antelope, and met a man with his wife and six children and five dogs and two cows and twelve chickens going east. He said he was tired of Nebraska, and was on his way to Illinois. At noon we stopped at Merriman, another railroad station. Jack got up and made a pretence of getting dinner, but he ate nothing himself, and really began to look ill. ”

“ Well, hardly!
"It's better than starving," said Ollie, and for once would not be coerced, though even her disobedience was on the ground of service. After she had cleared the table and washed the dishes she set out for her room, lugging a typewriter she had borrowed to brush up her speed on.
Prue had begged off from even wiping the dishes, because she had to dress. As Ollie started up-stairs to her task she was brought back by the door-bell. She ushered young Orton Hippisley into the parlor. He had come to take Prue to a dance. ”

“ The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the sex as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her passions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and trembling. ”

“ When the good women beheld these contractions they looked at each other meaningly and shook dolefully wise heads. Dry grief. Already it was laying deep hold on her, racking her like ague. She would waste under the curse of it, and follow Isom to the grave in a little while, if she could not soon be moved to weep.
Ollie did not want to appear unneighborly nor unkind, but as the night wore heavily on she at last requested them to leave her. ”

“ Richard added quickly, in a reflective tone—laying his hand on her shoulder as he noticed the change of voice—"just as I wanted him to do when he left school. There is a future for scientific men in this country which you do not see—a future which few around me seem to see. Great changes are coming, not only in science, but in the arts and in all useful knowledge. If Ollie can add to the brilliancy of this future by becoming a brilliant painter, able to help educate those about him, there could be no higher calling for him. ”

“ I—but it was very fortunate that Young Matt was there, wasn’t it?” The last sentence slipped out before she knew.
Ollie retorted angrily, “It seems to be very fortunate for him. He will be a greater hero than ever, now, I suppose. If he is wise, he will stay in the backwoods to be worshipped for he’ll find that his size won’t count for much in the world. He’s a great man here, where he can fight like a beast, but his style wouldn’t go far where brains are of value. It would be interesting to see him in town; a man who never saw a railroad.” ”

“ There was hope in the new farm-hand which swept into her heart like a refreshing breeze. She would look him over and sound him when he worked, choring between kitchen and barn.
Ollie had been a poor man’s child. Isom had chosen her as he would have selected a breeding-cow, because nature, in addition to giving her a form of singular grace and beauty, had combined therein the utilitarian indications of ability to plentifully reproduce her kind. Isom wanted her because she was alert and quick of foot, and strong to bear the burdens of motherhood ”

“ Why should I blame anyone for that which he cannot help?”
Then Ollie rode away, and Sammy, going to her pony, stood petting the little horse, while she watched her lover up the Old Trail, and still there was that wide, questioning look in her eyes. As Ollie passed from sight around the hill above, the girl slipped out of the gate, and a few minutes later stood at the Lookout, where she could watch her lover riding along the ridge. She saw him pass from the open into the fringe of timber near the big gap; and, a few minutes later, saw him reappear beyond the deer lick. ”

“ Ollie knew, as well as Joe himself, that he was making the whetstone the vehicle to carry his excuse for watching Morgan away from the farm, but she was not certain whether this sudden shrewdness was the deep understanding of a man, or the domineering spirit of a crude lad, jealous of his passing authority. ”

“ I said to Ollie as we headed back for our stores. "Just have the guys with money lined up in front of the guys without. Faster."
"Listen," Ollie said. "You always have a middle man. Can't avoid it." He coughed three or four times. I could see that the strain was getting him. A man Ollie's size shouldn't run around handing out money that way.
On my way back to the store someone handed me five thousand dollars. ”

“ Ollie and Sammy has been promised ever since the talk first began about his goin’; but they’ll wait now until he gets through his schoolin’. It’ll be mighty nice for Sammy, marryin’ Ollie, but we’ll miss her awful; the whole country will miss her, too. She’s just the life of the neighborhood, and everybody ’lows there never was another girl like her. Poor child, she ain’t had no mother since she was a little trick, and she has always come to me for everything like, us bein’ such close neighbors, and all. ”

“ Watch the clouds, and if you see a storm coming, hurry home, so as to get in before the rain."
Ollie promised to do as she was told and kissing her mother good-by she ran down-stairs. She found Lucy standing by the fence, looking over [Pg 20] into Mr. Beech's yard. Mr. Beech lived next to Ollie's papa, and he had one little girl. Every one called her "Chubby," because she was so plump and round.
"Lucy," called Ollie, "what are you doing?" [Pg 21]
"Come here a minute," said Lucy.
Ollie went to the fence, and there she saw Chubby holding a basket full of delicious ripe strawberries. ”

“ The plans thus made were duly carried through, as plans made by Olwen had a habit of being.
Mrs. Whitefield, since her niece's accession to wealth, had varied in her feelings between envy and a desire to stand well with the heiress. She accepted all favours offered, but could not forbear disparaging criticism. She was pleased to travel north in the fine Rolls-Royce, but vexed because she could not understand why Ollie should continue her tour alone, instead of taking Marjorie with her. Marjorie had grown stout, and was stolid and uninteresting. ”

“ A POOR COOK BUT A GOOD FELLOW
CONTENTS:
THE VOYAGE OF THE RATTLETRAP
I: GETTING READY
Perhaps we were pretty big boys--Jack and I. In fact, I'm afraid we were so big that we haven't grown much since. But Ollie was a boy, anyhow; he couldn't have been more than a dozen years old, and we looked upon him as being a very small boy indeed; though when folks saw us starting off, some of them seemed to think that we were as boyish as he, because, they said, it was such a foolish thing to do; and in some way, I'm sure I don't know how, boys have got the reputation of always doing foolish things. ”

“ It was a big-limbed fellow from Alder Creek talking, and, as he showed no liquor in his face, what he said sounded all the worse. I have heard as bad many a time without offense, for there is no code of loyalty concerning these girls, but Ollie had got my sympathy, somehow, and I resented the remarks, particularly the laughter. So did Prosser, the Puritan. He looked up from his work, white and dangerous.
"Don't talk that way about a girl," said he to the stranger, and it made a sensation among the crowd.
I never knew a man before with courage enough to kick in public on such subjects. ”

“ It is such fun to have a girl of my own age to talk to; but mamma has to be very busy this week, and I must get back and help her."
So Lucy walked toward the house. She wanted to get her bag, and to say good-by to Ollie's mamma.
The two children were talking so [Pg 51] busily as they went along that they did not notice a horse and wagon standing at the gate of Mr. Rogers's house, until they were close upon it.
"Why, Ollie!" exclaimed Lucy; "there is our horse; papa must have come for me. I wonder if we have kept him waiting!" ”

“ But there were still other eyes on Old Dewey that night, and sharp ears heard the big woodsman climbing out of the ravine, if Ollie did not. When the young man in the clear light of the moon crossed the Old Trail, a figure near the clump of trees, where he had sat with his two friends that day, dropped quietly behind a big rock, half hidden in the bushes. As the giant crept toward the Lookout, this figure followed, showing but little less skill than the mountaineer himself. ”