The Wizard's Daughter, and Other Stories

She glanced at him, leaning forward in his chair with the crutches beside him. He looked feeble about the temples, and his patched dressing-gown hung loose in wrinkles. She crossed the room and stood beside him. Of course she would stay with him. She did not ask herself why. She did not reason that it was because motherhood underlies wifehood and makes it sweet and sufficing; makes every good woman a mother to every dependent creature, be it strong or weak. I doubt if she reasoned at all. She only said, —

"Of course you will do right, father, and I will see about the school; I think I can get it. You must not worry; we shall get on very well."

Out in the June sunshine Lloyd was coming up the walk with Nancy Helen. She had been gathering wild strawberries in the meadow across the lane, and they had met at the gate. Her sunbonnet was pushed back from her crinkly hair, and her cheeks were stained redder than her finger-tips by Lloyd's teasing.

Marg'et Ann looked at them and sighed.

After her brother's return from presbytery Miss Nancy McClanahan borrowed her sister-in-law's horse and rode over to visit the Morrisons. It was not often that Miss Nancy made a trip of this kind alone, and Marg'et Ann ran down the walk to meet her, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing her hair.

Miss Nancy took the girl's soft cheeks in her hands and drew them into the shadow of her cavernous sunbonnet for a withered kiss.

"I want to see your father, Margie," she whispered, and the gentle constraint of spiritual things came into Marg'et Ann's voice as she answered, —

"He's in the best room alone; I moved him in there this morning to be out of the sweeping. You can go right in."

She lingered a little, hoping her old friend's concern of soul might not have obscured her interest in the salt-rising bread, which had been behaving untowardly of late; but Miss Nancy turned her steps in the direction of the best room, and Marg'et Ann opened the door for her, saying, —

"It's Miss McClanahan, father."

The minister looked up, wrinkling his forehead in the effort to disentangle himself from his thoughts. The old maid crossed the room toward him with her quick, hitching step.

"Don't try to get up, Joseph," she said, as he laid his hand on his crutches; "I'll find myself a chair."

She sat down before him, crossing her hands in her lap. The little worn band of gold was not on her finger, but there was a smooth white mark where it had been.

"Samuel got home from presbytery yesterday; he told me what was before them. I thought I'd like to have a little talk with you."

Her voice trembled as she stopped. A faint color showed itself through the silvery stubble on the minister's cheeks; he patted the arms of his chair nervously.

"I'm hardly prepared to discuss my opinions. They are vague, very vague, at best. I should be sorry to unsettle the faith" —

"I don't care at all about your opinions," Miss Nancy interrupted, pushing his words away with both hands; "I only wanted to speak to you about Marg'et Ann."

"Marg'et Ann!" The minister's relief breathed itself out in gentle surprise.

"Yes, Marg'et Ann. I think it's time somebody was thinking of her, Joseph." Miss Nancy leaned forward, her face the color of a withered rose. "She's doing over again what I did. Perhaps it was best for you. I believe it was, and I don't want you to say a word, – you mustn't, – but I can speak, and I'm not going to let Marg'et Ann live my life if I can help it."

"I don't understand you, Nancy."

The minister laid his hands on his crutches and refused to be motioned back into his chair. He stood before her, looking down anxiously into her thin, eager face.

"I know you don't. Esther never understood, either. You didn't know that Marg'et Ann gave up Lloyd Archer because he had doubts, but I knew it. I wanted to speak then, but I couldn't – to her – Esther, – and now you don't know that she's going to give him up again because you have doubts, Joseph. That's the way with women. They have no principles, only to do the hardest thing. But I know what it means to work and worry and pinch and have nothing in the end, not even troubles of your own, – they would be some comfort. And I'm going to save Marg'et Ann from it. I'm going to come here and take her place. I've got a little something of my own, you know; I always meant it for her."

She stopped, looking at him expectantly. The minister turned away, rubbing his hands up and down his polished crutches. There was a soft, troubled light in his eyes.

"Why, Nancy!"

His companion got up and moved a step backward. Her cheeks flushed a pale, faded red.

"Oh, no," she said, with a quick, impatient movement of her head, "not that, Joseph; that died years ago, – you are the same to me as other men, excepting that you are Marg'et Ann's father. It's for her. It's the only way I can live my life over again, by letting her live hers. I don't know that it will be any better; but she will know, she will have a certainty in place of a doubt. I don't know that my life would have been any better; I know yours would not, and anyway it's all over now. I know I can get on with the children, and I don't think people will talk. I hope you're not going to object, Joseph. We've always been very good friends."

He shook his head slowly.

"I don't see how I can, Nancy. It's very good of you. Perhaps," he added, looking at her with a wistful desire for contradiction, – "perhaps I've been a little selfish about Marg'et Ann."

"I don't think you meant to be, Joseph," said the old maid soothingly; "when anybody's so good as Marg'et Ann, she doesn't call for much grace in the people about her. I think it's a duty we owe to other people to have some faults."

Outside the door Marg'et Ann still lingered, with her anxiety about the bread on her lips and the shadow of much serving in her soft eyes. Miss Nancy stopped and drew her favorite into the shelter of her gaunt arms.

"I'm coming over next week to help you get ready for the wedding, Margie," she said, "and I'm going to stay when you're gone and look after things. They don't need me at Samuel's now, and I'll be more comfortable here. I've got enough to pay a little for my board the rest of my life, and I don't mean to work very hard, but I can show Nancy Helen and keep the run of things. There, don't cry. We'll go and look at the sponge now. I guess you'd better ride over to Yankee Neck this afternoon, and tell them you don't want the winter school – There, there!"

At the Foot of the Trail

I

The slope in front of old Mosey's cabin was a mass of purple lupine. Behind the house the wild oats were dotted with brodiæa, waving on long, glistening stems. The California lilac was in bloom on the trail, and its clumps of pale blossoms were like breaks in the chaparral, showing the blue sky beyond.

In the corral between the house and the mountain-side stood a dozen or more burros, wearing that air of patient resignation common to very good women and very obstinate beasts. Old Mosey himself was pottering about the corral, feeding his stock. He stooped now and then with the unwillingness of years, and erected himself by slow, rheumatic stages. The donkeys crowded about the fence as he approached with a forkful of alfalfa hay, and he pushed them about with the flat of the prongs, calling them by queer, inappropriate names.

A young man in blue overalls came around the corner of the house, swinging a newly trimmed manzanita stick.

"Hello, Mosey!" he called. "Here I am again, as hungry as a coyote. What's the lay-out? Cottontail on toast and patty de foy grass?"

The old man grinned, showing his worn, yellow teeth.

"I'll be there in a minute," he said. "Just set down on the step."

The young fellow came toward the corral.

"I've got a job on the trail," he said. "I'm going down-town for my traps. Who named 'em for you?" he questioned, as the old man swore softly at the Democratic candidate for President.

"Oh, the women, mostly. They take a lot of interest in 'em when they start out; they're afraid I ain't good to them. They don't say so much about it when they get back."

"They're too tired, I suppose."

"Yes, I s'pose so."

"You let out five this morning, didn't you? I met them on my way down. The girl in bloomers seemed to be scared; she gave a little screech every few minutes. The others didn't appear to mind."

"Oh, she wasn't afraid. Women don't make a noise when they're scared; it's only when they want to scare somebody else."

The young fellow leaned against the fence and laughed, with a final whoop. A gray donkey investigated his hip pocket, and he reached back and prodded the intruder with his stick.

"You seem to be up on the woman question, Mosey. It's queer you ain't married."

The old man was lifting a boulder to hold down a broken bale of hay, and made no reply. His visitor started toward the cabin. The old man adjusted another boulder and trotted after his guest, brushing the hay from his flannel shirt. A column of blue-white smoke arose from the rusty stovepipe in the cabin roof, and the smell of overdone coffee drifted out upon the spiced air.

"I was just about settin' down," said the host, placing another plate and cup and saucer on the blackened redwood table. "I'll fry you some more bacon and eggs."