Mary Ware in Texas Page 6

  CHAPTER III

  THE LITTLE TOWN OF BAUER

  MARY was the only one to whom the change of plans made a vitaldifference. She had built such lovely dream-castles of their winter inSan Antonio that it was hard to see them destroyed at one breath.

  "Of course it's the only thing to do," she said, in a mournful aside toNorman, "but did you ever dream that there was a dish of rare, deliciousfruit set down in front of you, so tempting that you could hardly waitto taste it, and just as you put out your hand it was suddenly snatchedaway? That's the way I feel about leaving here. And I've dreamed ofgetting letters, too; big, fat letters, that were somehow going tochange my whole life for the better, and then just as I started to readthem I always woke up, and so never found out the secret that would makesuch a change in my fortunes."

  "Maybe it won't be so bad after all," encouraged Norman. "Maybe we canhave a boat. There's a creek running through the town and the Barnabyranch is only seven miles out in the country. We'll see them often."

  Mary wanted to wail out, "Oh, it isn't boats, and ranches, and oldpeople I want! It's girls, and boys, and something doing! Being in theheart of things, as we would be if we could only stay here in thisbeautiful old city!"

  The wail found no voice, however, for even in the midst of herdisappointment Mary remembered Jack, and could not let him feel thatthis change in their plans meant any sacrifice for her. Besides, she hadto acknowledge that the creek and the ranch _did_ hold out somecompensations, and she was deeply grateful to these two kind old peoplewho had come to their rescue in such cordial, neighborly fashion. Mr.Barnaby had been called into the family council also, and had spent theevening with them discussing prices and prospects.

  Even Norman was impressed by their offers of assistance, and spoke of itas he sat slowly unlacing his shoes after they had gone. Mary was in thenext room, repacking her trunk, for it had been decided that she andNorman were to go to Bauer on the early accommodation train when theBarnabys left for home. The door between the rooms was still open, andshe heard him say, thoughtfully:

  "What do you suppose makes them so rattling good to us when we're juststrangers?"

  Jack laughed and quoted, teasingly:

  "'What makes the lamb love Mary so?' The eager children cry. 'Oh, Mary loves the lamb, you know,' The teacher did reply."

  "Aw, talk sense!" was Norman's disgusted answer. "I don't know what youmean by that."

  An understanding smile flashed between Jack and his mother, who hadstayed to help him prepare for the night, and she answered for him.

  "Jack only means that we get just what we give in this world, dear. Fromthe days of Solomon it's been a proverb that the man who would havefriends 'must show himself friendly.' And that's what you and Mary didthe first night you met the Barnabys. You made them feel that you foundthem genuinely interesting, and that awakened a liking for you."

  "But anybody'd find that old man interesting," Norman explained,gravely. "You never heard such Indian stories as he can tell,--trueones that he's been in himself,--and hunting--Gee! you ought to hearhim! I bid to sit next to him going up on the train."

  "You're welcome to him!" called Mary. "I'll take Mrs. B." Then she cameto the doorway, a pile of folded garments in her hands. "I declare,she's just an old dear! She's thought of so many ways to save us expensesince she found out that we have to economize. She even offered to haveour two extra trunks checked on their tickets. They only broughtsuit-cases. So we'll have no extra baggage to pay for."

  The sun was shining next morning, and although the chill of the Northerwas still in the air, the rain-washed plazas were greener than ever, andnew roses were opening to take the places of the old ones that the stormhad beaten off the day before. Mary's spirits seemed to have passedthrough the same freshening process, for there was no trace of tears orregrets on the bright face that greeted her travelling companions.

  The only morning train was an accommodation, which carried much freightand took its own time for the journey. This happened to be a day when itwas four hours on the road, but none of the little party felt that timedragged. Ordinarily, Mary would have enjoyed keeping close to the oldranchman, as Norman did, hopping off the car every time they stopped ona side-track, to investigate everything along the way,--the lime works,the rock quarry, the station where the mail was put off for the soldierswho were camped at the Government reservation for target practise. Eventhe little oil-burning engine would have been of as much interest to heras it was to Norman, had she not been so busily occupied otherwise.

  As they wound higher and higher into the hills she looked out now andthen with a quick exclamation of pleasure at the view, but for the mostpart she was "visiting" with Mrs. Barnaby, as that good soul expressedit. Their acquaintance took long strides forward that morning. Part ofthe time Mary chattered along just as if her listener had been one ofthe Warwick Hall girls, and part of the time she listened to elderlyviews and confidences with the seeming sympathy of middle age. A bit ofpersonal history from one called out a corresponding scrap from theother, and they had exchanged views on many subjects, ranging from youngturkeys to unhappy marriages, when the porter passed through the traincalling, "Bauer! All out for Bauer!"

  Mrs. Barnaby glanced out the window, saying in surprise, "I had no ideawe were so near home!" Then she gave Mary's sleeve an affectionatelittle pat with her plump hand, exclaiming cordially, "I declare, it'sbeen a real treat to have you along." And Mary, as she helped Mrs.Barnaby struggle into her coat, responded, "Well, I've enjoyed everyinch of the way. Somehow you make me feel that you're just my age or I'mjust yours,--I don't know which. You can't imagine how 'little and lorn'I feel at the thought of leaving you."

  "Oh, but I'm not going to leave you until you're safely settled," wasthe comforting assurance. "James has some business at the court-housethat will keep him in town for an hour or so. As soon as we drop himthere I'll drive around with you to make arrangements about the cottage.There's Pedro now."

  They were on the platform by this time, and she indicated by a nod theslim young Mexican who had driven the carriage from the ranch to meetthem. It was a roomy, old-fashioned carriage drawn by two big graymules, with much shining nickel-plating on their stout black harness.The station was half a mile away from the village, and as they swungdown the sunny white road towards it, at a rapid gait, both Norman andMary looked out eagerly at the place that was to be their home for awhole long winter, and maybe more.

  From a distance it looked almost like a toy village, with its red roofs,blue barns and flashing windmills nestled against the background ofmisty hills. Low mountain peaks rose here and there on the far horizonbeyond.

  "This is distinctly a German village, you know," explained Mrs. Barnaby,as they passed a group of little flaxen-haired Teutons on the roadside,who were calling to each other and their dog in a tongue which Marycould not understand.

  "Bauer was settled by an old German count and a baron or two, who cameover here with their families and followers. They made it as much like acorner of the Fatherland as they could, and their descendants stillcling to their language and customs. They don't want any disturbing,aggressive Americans in their midst, so they never call on new-comers,and never return their visits if any of them try to make the advances.They will welcome you to their shops, but not to their homes. Even theEnglish and Scotch people who have owned the out-lying ranches as longas they have owned the town are looked upon as aliens and strangers, ina way."

  "MARY WARE in TEXAS"

  "A dashing girl in khaki and a cowboy hat astride of a fiery littlemustang"]

  Mary gave an exclamation of dismay. "Texas certainly is full ofsurprises," she said, in a disappointed tone. "One thinks of it as beingyoung and crude, and with the proverbial hospitality of a new country.I've always thought of it as having the latch-string out for everybody."

  "Oh, _Texas_ has," Mrs. Barnaby hastened to assure her. "Its doors arewide open, and its welcome corresponds to its size, the biggest in the
Union. But Bauer is different. It has a few families who will not lookon you with suspicion. The old couple who own the cottage which I hopeto get for you will be good neighbors, and if you were to live here along time there are others who would be friendly. Then there are severalAmerican families who have found a foothold in the town, and as I said,English-speaking people on the ranches hereabout. They are cultured,refined people, interesting to know, but strangers coming here rarelymake their acquaintance. You see we have so many transients coming fortheir health, staying just a few weeks or months and going onagain--it's hardly to be expected we'd--"

  Her sentence was interrupted by a dashing girl in khaki and a cowboyhat, astride a fiery little mustang. She rode past the carriage, callingout a greeting as she passed. Norman turned around exclaiming, "Did yousee that? A cartridge belt around her waist and a six-shooter in herholster! That's the wild West for you."

  "That's the sheriff's daughter," explained Mrs. Barnaby. "She's hisdeputy, and meets the trains when it's necessary and he's out of town."

  "I'd like to know her," said Mary. "I'm glad that there's something togive one the kind of a thrill you naturally expect to have out here. Iwas beginning to have such a foreign, far-away feeling, seeing all thesepicturesque little German gardens with old women weeding in them. We canimagine we are abroad this winter in Cologne or Pottsdam or Bingen onthe Rhine. Oh, _oh!_ How quaint and dear!"

  The exclamation escaped her as the gray mules stopped at the gate of anold garden, over whose stone walls arched a row of great pecan trees. Astraight path ran from the gate to the kitchen door, stiffly bordered bycoxcombs and princes' feather, while on each side chrysanthemums androses and a host of old-fashioned autumn flowers made the little plot atangle of colors and sweet smells. There were some bee-hives under thebare peach trees, and at one side beyond them, a small vineyard wherethe mockingbirds still sang noisily although the grapes had all beengathered and pressed into wine. An old man with a flowing white beardand a high black hat sat on a bench by the kitchen door placidly smokinga long pipe.

  "That's Mr. Metz," said Mrs. Barnaby, preparing to alight. "Come in withme."

  "It's all just like one of the pictures in Joyce's studio," commentedMary, as they followed the straight walk to the door, "and this is justlike one of those lovely old-master, Dutch interiors," she added, in awhisper, as Mr. Metz ushered them into the big, clean kitchen, where hiswife sat knitting.

  On the deep window-sill a cat lay asleep in the sun beside a pot ofglowing red geraniums, and there was such an air of cleanliness andthrift and repose about the room that Mary could not help exclaimingaloud over it. As she glanced around with admiring glances her brightface showed its appreciation also, and Mrs. Metz watched it shrewdlywhile she talked with Mrs. Barnaby, in English so broken as to be almostunintelligible.

  What the old woman saw must have satisfied her, for she accepted Mrs.Barnaby's offer after a very short parley with her husband in German,and when they rose to go she bade them wait while she made a stifflittle nosegay for each of them, culled from her garden borders andedged with strong-smelling mint. In the center of Mary's was one of herhandsomest coxcombs. Mrs. Barnaby smiled meaningly when she saw it, andwhen they had climbed back into the carriage, said in a pleased tone,"That shows that she has weighed you in the balance and is satisfiedwith the result. You'll get along famously with her, I'm sure, and we'llsoon have you settled now, in fine shape."

  An hour later Mary stood on the threshold of the cottage she had rented,with the keys of possession in her hand. Thanks to Mrs. Barnaby and therapid gait of the gray mules, much had been accomplished in that time.The groceries they had ordered were already piled on the table in thekitchen. A load of wood was on its way. The new mattresses they hadbought at the furniture shop (kept by the undertaker of the village)were promised for delivery early in the afternoon, and they had beenintroduced at each place as friends of the Barnabys, who were to becharged home prices, and not the ones usually asked of strangers. Mrs.Barnaby was what she called plain-spoken, and although she made a jestof her demands they carried weight.

  Their trunks, three of which contained bedclothes and dishes, stood onthe front gallery waiting to be unpacked. Inside, the house looked asclean as soapsuds and fresh paint could make it. Mrs. Metz herself hadattended to the scrubbing after the last tenant left. But Mary decidedthat she would feel more comfortable, moving in after strangers, if sheshould give the furniture a personal washing before they began to useit. While Norman built a fire in the kitchen stove, she unlocked one ofthe trunks and changed her travelling suit for a gingham dress andapron.

  "Let's eat picnic fashion," called Norman, "and unpack afterward. It'snearly one o'clock, and I'm too hungry to wait. I've found a cup I canboil some eggs in, and if we don't use any dishes we won't have any towash afterwards."

  "That's a bright suggestion," Mary called back. "We haven't any time tolose if we are to get everything ready for mamma and Jack by to-morrowafternoon."

  When she came dancing out into the kitchen a few minutes later Normanhad already begun his luncheon, and was walking around with a cheesesandwich in one hand and a pickle in the other, investigating thepremises while he ate. Mary followed his example, and wandered from theopen doorway to the open windows, looking at the view from each, andexclaiming over each new discovery. The house was on a slight knoll witha wide cotton-field stretching down between it and the little village.From this distance it looked more than ever like a toy village, againstthe background of low hills.

  "You ought to see it from the top of the windmill," said Norman. "Iclimbed up while you and Mrs. Barnaby were talking so long at the gate.I'm glad we've got a windmill. It'll save me a lot of pumping, and itmakes such a fine watch-tower. You ought to see how far you can lookacross the country. You can see the creek. It's just a little way backof our place."

  "I'm going up this minute!" answered Mary. Slipping her unfinishedsandwiches into her apron pocket, she ran out to the windmill and beganto swing herself from one cross-piece of the tower to another, aslightly as Norman had done.

  "It's perfectly lovely!" she called back from the top. "I'd like to perchup here all afternoon if there wasn't so much to do. I'm going to come uphere often. It gives you such a high-up-above-all-your-earthly-illsfeeling! There's St. Peter's," she called, "over at the south end oftown. I recognize the little stone belfry. What do you suppose thatsquare tower is at the other end of town?"

  Norman came out and climbed half-way up the windmill, swinging therebelow her by one arm, as he slowly munched a ginger-snap.

  "Oh, that," he said, as he looked in the direction which she pointed."That's the Sisters' school. I asked Pedro this morning. It's theAcademy of the Holy Angels."

  Mary's face glowed as she shook back the hair which the wind keptblowing into her eyes. "That's perfectly fascinating!" she declared."There's something beautiful to me in the thought that the little townwe've come to lies between two such guardians. It's a good omen, and I'mnot sorry now that we had to come."

  She stayed perched on the windmill, enjoying the view and eating hersandwiches until Norman called her that the wash-water was boiling overon the stove. Then she climbed nimbly down and started towards thekitchen door. The kitchen was in an ell of the house, and from its frontwindow she could see the road which ran in front of the house. Justacross it, half hidden by a row of bushy umbrella trees, stood twolittle blue cottages. They were within easy calling distance, and thevoices of half a dozen children at play came cheerfully across to her.Although they spoke in a foreign tongue the chatter gave her a sense ofcompanionship.

  "Norman," she suddenly suggested, "let's stay here to-night, instead ofgoing to the boarding-house as mamma and Mrs. Barnaby arranged. I'm notafraid with neighbors so near, and I'm sure mamma wouldn't care if shecould see how quiet and peaceful it is here. We'd be savingconsiderable--a night's lodging for two, and we can make this realcomfortable and homey by bedtime."

  With the promise of hot biscuit and hon
ey for supper Norman agreed toher plan. He was to call at the boarding-house and cancel thearrangements Mrs. Barnaby had made for them, when he went for the milkwhich Mr. Metz had promised to sell them. It was from the Metz bee-hivesthey were to have the honey, too. She had engaged it as a special treatfor Jack.

  Under her direction Norman fell to work making a kitchen cabinet out oftwo old boxes, while she scrubbed away at the chairs and tables.

  "Isn't it funny the way history repeats itself?" she remarked. "Thismakes me think of the time that Joyce and Jack had getting settled inthe Wigwam. I felt so defrauded then because I couldn't have a hand init, and this seems a sort of compensation for what I missed then."

  The exercise seemed to loosen her tongue, for as she worked she went on,"I'm truly glad that I can enjoy both the top and bottom crusts ofthings. Nobody, I am sure, could have squeezed more pleasure out of thislast week than I did. I fairly revelled in all the luxuries we had asMr. Robeson's guests. It comes so easy to be waited on and to be thefine lady. And on the other hand, it is a real joy to be working thisway, blacking stoves and filling lamps and making things look spick andspan. I can spend like a lord and I can skimp like a scrubwoman, and Ireally don't know which I enjoy most."

  She did not attempt to put any finishing touches to the house that day,but left such things as the hanging of curtains and the few picturesthey had brought until next morning. But before she stopped everythingwas shining, her room was ready for the night, and a cot was made up forNorman in the room which he was to share with Jack. Later, while shewaited for the biscuits to bake and for him to come home with the milkand honey, she wrote a letter to Joyce. She did not take time to go tothe bottom of her trunk for writing material, but emptying the sugarfrom a large paper sack, cut it into several square sheets. With a bigtin pan turned bottom upwards in her lap for a desk, she hastilyscribbled the events of the day with a lead-pencil, which she sharpenedwith the carving-knife.

  Joyce has that letter yet. It was scribbled in the most careless,commonplace way, just as Mary would have told it had they been together;but Joyce, who could read her little sister like a book, read betweenthe lines and divined the disappointments she had conquered, and saw thecourage it took to make the most of every amusing incident in such acheery way, while she touched only lightly on the serious ones.

  "We had a visitor a little while ago," wrote Mary, in closing. "TheReverend Paul Rochester came to call, and where, of all awkwardimpossible places, do you suppose he found me? Up on the windmilltower. I had gone up again to watch the sunset,--for just a minute. Theglow on the roofs of the town and the hills beyond was so lovely! IfNorman had had any sense he would have ignored my high perch. He wassplitting kindling by the back door, making such a noise that we couldnot hear Mr. Rochester's knock at the front door, so he came around.

  "Mrs. Barnaby had stopped at the rectory on her way home to tell themabout our coming to town, and Mrs. Rochester thought that we were allhere, and that we would be so busy getting settled that we wouldn't havemuch time to cook things for an invalid, and she had sent the mosttempting basketful of good things you ever saw. There was orangegelatine and charlotte russe, and some delicious nut sandwiches. Therector had walked all the way up here and carried the basket himself.You know I've always stood in awe of clergymen. At first this one seemedfully as dignified and reverend as all the others, and I nearly fell offmy perch with embarrassment when he looked up and saw me hanging therelike a monkey on a stick. But the next moment we both laughed, and heseemed almost as young and boyish as Jack.

  "I scuttled down in a hurry, I assure you. He only stayed a minute, justlong enough to deliver the basket and his wife's message, but you've noidea how that little incident changed the whole atmosphere. I'd beenlooking down the white road that leads from our place into the town,thinking how lonely and foreign everything was, and how hard it would beto live all winter in a place where nobody wanted to be neighborly, andwhere the only people we knew were slightly old like the Barnabys orawfully old like the Metzes, and then Mr. Rochester appeared, young andso nice-looking and with a jolly twinkle in his eyes that makes youforget the clerical cut of his clothes.

  "His wife must be young, too, or she couldn't be married to him, and shemust be dear or she wouldn't have sent such a dainty, altogethercharming basket with her message of greeting. You've no idea how theircordial welcome changed everything. Now as I look through the open doorat the same road leading to the town, it doesn't look lonely and foreignany more. It makes me think of a verse that dear old Grandmother Waretaught me once. You remember how she used to take us up in her lap andmake us spell the words out to her from her big Bible with the terriblepictures. '_The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough waysshall be made smooth!_'

  "Well, grandmother's verse is coming true. It was all so crooked anduncertain and rough yesterday. But now everything is being smoothed outfor us so beautifully. I have just looked out to see if Norman iscoming. I can hear him whistling away down the road.

  "I wish you, with your artist's eye for effect, could see the littletown now, spread out below the hills in the twilight, with the windmillssilhouetted against the sky. At one end is the little stone belfry ofSt. Peter's, at the other the square gray tower of the Academy of theHoly Angels; and just between, swinging low over the hills in the faintafterglow, the pale golden crescent of the new moon. After all, it's agood old world, Joyce, and I 'feel it in my bones' that little old Baueris going to bring us some great good that shall make us thankful alwaysfor having come. In some way, I am sure, all our '_rough ways shall bemade smooth_.'"