The Girl at the Halfway House by Emerson Hough (good fiction books to read TXT) 📕

Franklin looked out over a deserted and solitary land as he rode up to the foot of the hill. There were no longer banners of dust where the wild game swept by, nor did the eye catch any line of distant horsemen. It was another day. Yet, as did the candidate of old, he left his horse at the foot of the hill and went up quite alone.

It was afternoon as he sat down. The silence and solitude folded him about, and the sun sank so fitly slow that he hardly knew, and the solemn night swept softly on. . . . Then he built a little fire. . . . In the night, after many hours, he arose and lifted up his hands. . . . At the foot of the hill the pony stopped cropping grass, tossed his head, and looked up intently at the summit.

It was morning. The sun rose calm and strong. The solitary figure upon the hill sat motionless, looking out. There might have passed before him a perspective of the past, the Plains peopled with their former life; the oncoming of the white men from below; the remnant of the passing Latin race, typified in the unguided giant who, savage with savage, fought here near by, one brutal force meeting another and both passing before one higher and yet more strong. To this watcher it seemed that he looked out from the halfway point of the nation, from the halfway house of a nation's irresistible development.

Franklin had taken with him a small canteen of water, but bethinking himself that as of old the young man beseeching his dream neither ate nor drank until he had his desire, he poured out the water at his side as he sat in the dark. The place was covered with small objects, bits of strewn shells and beads and torn "medicine bundles"—pieces of things once held dear in earlier minds. He felt his hand fall by accident upon some small object which had been wetted by the wasted water. Later, in the crude light of the tiny flame which he had kindled, this lump of earth assumed, to his exalted fancy, the grim features of an Indian chieftain, wide-jawed, be-tufted, with low brow, great mouth, and lock of life's price hanging down the neck. All the fearlessness, the mournfulness, the mysticism of the Indian face was there. Franklin always said that he had worked at this unconsciously, kneading the lump between his fingers, and giving it no thought other than that it felt cooling to his hand and restful to his mind. Yet here, born ultimately of the travail of a higher mind, was a man from another time, in whose gaze sat the prescience of a coming day. The past and the future thus were bridged, as may be done only by Art, the enduring, the uncalendared, the imperishable.

Shall we say that this could not have been? Shall we say that Art may not be born in a land so young? Shall we say that Art may not deal with things uncatalogued, and dare not treat of unaccepted things? Nay, rather let us say that Art, being thought, has this divine right of elective birth. For out of tortures Art had here won the deep imprimatur.

Edward Franklin, a light-hearted man, rode homeward happily. The past lay correlated, and for the future there were no longer any wonderings. His dream, devoutly sought, had given peace.

[*]Before his twenty-ninth year Edward Franklin's hair had always been a dark reddish brown. When he returned from a certain journey it was noticed that upon his temple there was a lock of snowy whiteness. Shon-to, a Cheyenne Indian, once noticed this and said to Franklin: "You have slept upon the Dreaming Hill, and a finger has touched you! Among my people there was a man who had a spot of white in his hair, and his father had this spot, and his son after him. These men were thought to have been touched by the finger of a dream many years ago. These men could see in the dark." The Indian said this confidently.

In a certain old Southern city there stands, as there has stood for many generations, and will no doubt endure for many more, a lofty mansion whose architecture dates back to a distant day. Wide and spacious, with lofty stories, with deep wings and many narrow windows, it rests far back among the ancient oaks, a stately memorial of a day when gentlemen demanded privacy and could afford it. From the iron pillars of the great gateway the white front of the house may barely be seen through avenues made by the trunks of the primeval grove. The tall white columns, reaching from gallery floor to roof without pause for the second lofty floor, give dignity to this old-time abode, which comports well with the untrimmed patriarchal oaks. Under these trees there lies, even today, a deep blue-grass turf which never, from the time of Boone till now, has known the touch of ploughshare or the tool of any cultivation.

It was the boast of this old family that it could afford to own a portion of the earth and own it as it came from the hand of Nature. Uncaught by the whirl of things, undisturbed essentially even by the tide of the civil war, this branch of an old Southern family had lived on in station unaffected, though with fortune perhaps impaired as had been those of many Southern families, including all the Beauchamp line.

To this strong haven of refuge had come Mary Ellen Beauchamp from the far-off Western plains, after the death of her other relatives in that venture so ill-starred. The white-haired old widow who now represented the head of the Clayton family—her kin somewhat removed, but none the less her "cousins," after the comprehensive Southern fashion—had taken Mary Ellen to her bosom, upbraiding her for ever dreaming of going into the barbarian West, and listening but little to the plea of the girl that poverty had driven her to the company of those who, like herself, were poor. Now, such had been the turn of the wheel, the girl was nearly as rich in money as her older relative, and able to assume what little of social position there remained in her ambition.

Mary Ellen was now well past twenty-seven, a tall, matured, and somewhat sad-faced woman, upon her brow written something of the sorrows and uncertainties of the homeless woman, as well as the record of a growing self-reliance. If Mary Ellen were happy or not none might say, yet surely she was dutiful and kind; and gradually, with something of the leadership she had learned in her recent life, she slipped into practical domestic command of this quiet but punctilious menage. By reason of an equal executive fitness Aunt Lucy rose in the kitchen also into full command. The Widow Clayton found her cousin Mary Ellen a stay and comfort, useful and practical to a degree unknown in the education of the Southern young lady of the time.

Of her life in the West Mary Ellen spoke but little, though never with harshness, and at times almost with wistfulness. Her history had seemed too full of change to be reality. For the future she made no plans. It seemed to her to be her fate ever to be an alien, a looker-on. The roses drooped across her lattice, and the blue grass stood cool and soft and deep beyond her window, and the kind air carried the croon of the wooing mocking bird; yet there persisted in her brain the picture of a wide, gray land, with the sound of an urgent wind singing in the short, tufted grasses, and the breath of a summons ever on the air. Out there upon the Plains it had been ever morning. Here life seemed ever sinking toward its evening-tide.

This old family and the family house were accepted unquestioningly by the quiet Southern community now, as they had ever been, as a part of the aristocracy of the land, and as appurtenances there-to. The way of life had little change. The same grooms led out the horses from the stables, the same slow figures cut the grass upon the lawn. Yet no longer were the doors thrown open upon a sea of light and colour. The horses were groomed and broken, but they brought no great carriage of state sweeping up the drive between the lion-headed pillars of the gateway. When Mrs. Clayton feebly sought to propose brighter ways of life for the young woman, the latter told her gently that for her, too, life was planned and done, the struggle over, and that she asked only that she might rest, and not take up again any questions for readjustment.

"You will change after a while, honey," said her protectress; but Mary Ellen only smiled. It was enough to rest here in this haven, safe from the surging seas of doubt and hope and fear, of love and self-distrust. Let it be settled. Let it be ended. Let these tall white columns mark the grave of her heart. Let this wide sea of green mirror that which should one day lie above her bosom in this land of finished things. Let the great lion gates guard off all intrusion, all curiosity, even all well-intended courtesy. For her no cavalier should ever come riding up the gravelled way, nor should lights ever set dancing again the shadows in the great dining hall over the heads of guests assembled in her honour. It was done—finished. And Mary Ellen was not yet twenty-eight.

One morning the little street car stood, as was its wont, at the terminus of the track, near the front of the wide grounds of the old mansion house. This was far out upon the edge of the little city, and few were the patrons that might be expected; but it was held but mere courtesy to offer the services of the street-car line to this family, so long recognised as one of the unimpeachably best of this Southern city. This modern innovation of the street car was not readily taken up by the conservative community, and though it had been established for some years, it might be questioned whether its shares had ever paid much interest upon their face value. Now and then a negress with a laundry bundle, a schoolgirl with her books, a clerk hurrying to his counter, might stop the lazy mules and confer the benefit of an infrequent coin.

At this terminus of the line at the outskirts of the town there was each morning enacted the same little scene. The driver slowly unhitched his mules and turned them about to the other end of the car, in readiness for the return journey. Matters having progressed this far, the mules fell at once into a deep state of dejection and somnolence, their ears lopping down, their bodies drooping and motionless, save as now and then a faint swish of tail or wag of a weary ear bespoke the knowledge of some bold, marauding fly. The driver, perched upon his seat, his feet upon the rail, his knees pushed toward his chin, sat with his broad hat drawn down upon his forehead, his hands clasped between his legs, and all his attitude indicative of rest. Slow clouds of dust passed along the road near by, and the glare of the sun grew warm; but no motion came to either team or driver, undisturbed by any care and bound by no inconvenient schedule. From the big oaks came now and then the jangle of a jay, or there might be seen flitting the scarlet flame of the cardinal. These things were unnoted, and the hour droned on.

Presently from a side street, faced by a large brick dwelling, there came with regular and unhurried tread a tall and dignified figure, crowned with a soft Panama, and tapping with official cane. As it approached the car the driver straightened a trifle on the seat.

"Good mawnin', Judge Wilson," he said.

"Uh-ah, good mawnin', James," replied the judge. "Uh-ah, Doctah Gregg li'l late this mawnin', eh?"

"Yessah, seems like," said the driver, his head again falling.

In perhaps five or ten minutes, perhaps