Seyd

“ The lady shook her head.
"I was, all last vacation—real ranch, real cowboys. Used to take pony rides every day."
John sketched a caricature on the frosty window pane and sulked in silence. Why didn't his folks make enough money to take him on such summer jaunts? Then he wouldn't have to sit like a dummy and listen to his rival out-talk him with the one girl he cared anything about.
"And walk?" continued Sid, secure in his romancing, now that he knew that neither of his auditors had been beyond the Mississippi. "Why, the air's so fine that you can walk ever so far without feeling tired. ”

“ Seth hastened to Paradise. The way was barren, vegetation was scanty and of sombre colours; over all lay the black prints of his father’s and mother’s feet. Presently the walls surrounding Paradise appeared. Around them nature revived, the earth was covered with verdure and dappled with flowers. The air vibrated with exquisite music. Seth was dazzled with the beauty which surrounded him, and he walked on forgetful of his mission. Suddenly there flashed before him a wavering line of fire, upright, like a serpent of light continuously quivering. ”

“ Sid, with new skates glistening at his side, was bound for the park lagoon when John ran across the street and stopped him.
"Come along?" asked Sid amicably. John shook his head.
"I want to talk to you," said he. "Bill says you're trying to cut me out with Louise. It's got to stop." ”

“ Louise acquiesced. Sid scowled and fell back upon the wild and woolly West as a means of maintaining the conversational upper hand.
"Once I went hunting, last summer"—he began. John glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he brought his voluble rival along?—"hunting for bear," continued the narrator. "Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms—"
"Palms don't grow out West," John interrupted savagely. ”

“ John exploded. Sid nodded his head.
"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em now?"
Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.
"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.
"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"
The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe we can beat 'em anyway." ”

“ Sedley and I were one day conversing together about women. Sid was a very deep fellow in that game: no passion you know; no love on his own side; nothing of the sort; all done by rule and compass; knew women as well as dice, and calculated the exact moment when his snares would catch them, according to the principles of geometry. D——d clever fellow, faith; but a confounded rascal: but let it go no further; mum’s the word! must not slander the dead; and ‘tis only my suspicion, you know, after all. ”

“ The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the maroon and white stockings.
"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start practice." ”

“ John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the Halloween party—the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since that time—clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his girl. ”

“ Mrs. Schmitz laughed and started toward the hall. “Goot Seedney!” she called back. “Ida finds already two fine brothers; one, Max, to make her fly mit the clouds; ant Seedney, to hold her to the earth, from which all our life must come. She iss a lucky girl.”
“The nursery is all right for the night,” [184] embarrassed Sydney said by way of changing the subject. ”

“ But in all this Seth reckoned without his host. Such glorious eyes, such a charming face as Rosebud possessed were not likely to belong to a girl devoid of the instincts of her sex. As she grew up her perspective changed. She saw things in a different light. Seth no longer appealed to her as a sort of uncle, or even father. She saw in him a young man of medium good looks, a strong, fine figure. A man who had no idea of the meaning of the word fear; a man who had a way of saying and doing things which often made her angry, but always made her glad that he said and did them. ”

“ No, Seth, my dear cousin, not at all. I am only showing you the exact situation. You are too excited, or too unpractical, to see it for yourself. You talk now about being at the gates of hell and expressions like that—wild words which signify only that you have had trouble during the evening. I fancy that all men are apt to exaggerate such things—I know you are. ”

“ It was through that plateau of pine timber that their route north to the Canyon Cheyo would lie, and somewhere, cut deep in the plateau, would be that valley of the ancient cliff dwellers that they all wished to see. As Sid studied the huge panorama an overwhelming desire for solitude came over him. He wanted to be alone, to take for himself the Indian boy’s three days of trial and to face life and his future for a time with wide open eyes, alone and uncounseled. Like them, he wanted to ask questions of life and learn what it all was going to mean for him. ”

“ My new master I shall never forget; he had black eyes and a hooked nose, his mouth was as full of teeth as a bull-dog's, and his voice was as harsh as the grinding of cart wheels over graveled stones. His name was Nicholas Skinner, and I believe he was the man that poor Seedy Sam drove for.
I have heard men say that seeing is believing; but I should say that feeling is believing; for much as I had seen before, I never knew till now the utter misery of a cab-horse's life. ”

“ Seth was indisputably the handsomest of all the Fairchilds, even handsomer than she remembered his father to have been—a tall, straight, broadshouldered youth, who held his head well up and looked everybody in the face with honest hazel eyes. He had the Richardson complexion, a dusky tint gained doubtless from all those Dutch intermarriages of which poor Cicely used to make so much, but his brown hair curled much as Lemuel’s used to curl, only not so effeminately, and his temper was as even as his father’s had been, though not so submissive or weak. ”

“ Why, Seth's claim takes up the very heart of the city. That girl's worth her weight in gold, that Cyclona, and she deserves it, taking care of the baby first, then watching after Seth. I believe she's in love with Seth. I believe she lives in hopes that he'll come back again. I know. She is seen everywhere with Hugh Walsingham, drivin' with him in her stylish little trap, a good driver she is, too, after ridin' fiery bronchos, herdin' Seth's cattle and livin' wild-like on the prairies. She's a splendid whip, afraid of nothin'. ”

“ Everybody in Thessaly knows him and likes him and calls him ‘John,’ and that seems to be the height of his ambition. I can’t imagine a man of his abilities being satisfied with so limited a horizon.”
“And, you, Seth, what is your horizon like?” asked Isabel.
They had entered the orchard path, now, and the apple blossoms close above them filled the May morning air with that sweet spring perfume which seems to tell of growth, harvest, the fruition of hope. ”

“ Vivian, Blanche and Helena and I want to be very useful, if you will let us," said Cecil, one morning. She was always soft and playful with that gentlest of all women, Syd's mother. "What do you smile in that incredulous way for? We can be extraordinarily industrious: the steam sewing-machine is nothing to us when we choose! What do you think we are going to do? We are going to decorate the church for Christmas. ”

“ The manifest ill-humor of the tone brought the color to Seth's cheeks; but he was not to be checked by it, and he came at once to the point by responding:
"I want to join your Rangers, sir."
The famous scout looked him over from head to foot and then broke into a laugh that was so clearly contemptuous as to make Seth thrill with indignation, although he strove not to show it in his countenance.
"You want to join my Rangers, eh? And what good would such a youngster as you be to me? I want only men who can stand anything and are not afraid of anything." ”

“ John stared in amazement. Two packages and three letters—two hugs and three kisses—what was there in that overdressed little doll to merit such favor?
Correspondence became fast and furious. Eventually the postmaster called John forward and whispered a name in his ear before he went into the alcove. His appointee, concealing his astonishment as best he could, called out, "Ella Black, Ella Black; four letters for Ella Black!" at the top of his lungs. But for that much-despised young lady to be so honored by the social lion of the evening was more than he could comprehend. ”

“ A few busy minutes were spent in making ammunition, then Sid, his longing for leadership gratified at last, led his army behind the "U" shaped protection. Bill beckoned his followers out of range, and missiles began to fly. John laid the glasses down wistfully.
Shucks! watching only made him want to join worse than ever. The book was better than that!
Dusk came at last, and liberation. As he was returning from the newspaper route, the sight of a familiar figure, in the lighted circle of a street lamp, made him cross over. It was Louise. ”

“ Schmitz, as to most women, the fervor of house-cleaning. She did this as everything else, with vigor and dispatch.
“Come mit me, Seedney; you have to move,” she said breezily as she pushed back from the early breakfast table one Saturday morning.
Sydney looked up apprehensively.
“Have no fear,” she began smilingly, yet her face saddened a little. “Poor boy! You have so often to move in your life you are afraid of [91] the word, nicht wahr? I send you not away. Think not so.”
Sydney’s face cleared and he followed her upstairs.
“It iss here you will stay.” ”

“ There has never a word passed between Seth and me that every soul of you might not have heard, and welcome. He was simply pleasant and friendly to me—and I was grateful to him and fond of him, as I might be of a brother. Where was the harm? In no decent state of society would any one ever have dreamed of suspecting wrong. But here—why, people live and breathe suspicion! It is the breath of their nostrils.”
“I thought you used to correspond,” John said, tentatively.
“Correspond! There it is again! What of it, I should like to know? Why shouldn’t my cousin, my brother, write to me? ”

“ John picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass, rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he beamed his approval.
"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.
"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.
"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in our eyes. ”

“ Louise watched the two eagerly.
"Why that cost all of a quarter. And kids who asks folks to have sundaes and then can't pay for them, don't spend that much for valentines. Cheapskates never do!"
Sid scowled. Before he could make suitable reply, Miss Brown rapped for order and he had to go back to his seat. There, as he squirmed in his seat while waiting for the dismissal bell, he caught John looking at him and stuck out his tongue as a manifestation of his scorn. ”

“ A wild, desperate idea came into Cecil's mind. She contrasted the passionless calm of his face with the tender gentleness of his tone a few moments ago, and she would [Pg 129] have given her life to see him "lose his head for her" as he had done for that other. How she hated her, whoever she had been! Cecil had seen too many men not to know that Syd's cool exterior covered a stormy heart, and in the longing to rouse up the storm at her incantation she resolved to play a dangerous game. ”

“ I am a childless man—probably always shall be. As long as Father lives the farm shall remain in his name. Either his will can be in my favor, or I can manage the farm as a trustee for all three of us, after he’s gone. In either case, you shall both be protected in turn by my will—absolutely protected. Meantime, what do you want me to do for Seth? What does he want to do?”
“Nothing needs to be done for me,” began Seth, “I can—”
“Now, youngster, will you be quiet!” said John, in mock despair. “I’ll tell you what you can do for Seth, and do easily. ”