Because of Stephen (5 page)

Philip Earle drove away into the sunshine at high speed. He was determined to make all the time he could. He felt uneasy about Stephen, lest he should
mount
his horse and come after, in spite of injunctions to stay about the house and take care of his sister until they got things into some sort of shape. There were more reasons than one why Philip sh
ould be uneasy about Stephen today. Nothing must be al
lowed to happen to startle the newcomer on this her first day. Perhaps she would be able to make thing
s much better. Who knew? It cer
tainly would be great to have something homelike about them. Though it would be all the worse when she would get tired of it,—as of course she would sooner or later,—and take her things and herself off, leaving them to their desolation once more.
But
Philip would not let himself think of that. With the gayety
of a boy of
fifteen
he called to his horses and hastened over the miles to town.

Margaret and Stephen went out to walk around the house, and plan how the kitchen
could be bro
ught
near enough for use. Marga
ret suggested,
too, that there ought to be an
other bedroom built on the other side of the house. She tried to find out how much of a share in things Philip owned, but Stephen was non-committal and morose when she talked of this, and did not seem to take much interest in any changes she would like to make in the house
;
so she desisted.

She wondered why this was. Could it be that Stephen was short of money? She knew that he had a good sum left to him by his own mother, and her father
had also
left certain properties which had gone to him at the death of her mother. Could it be that they
were tied up
so that he could not get at the interest, or was it possible that he had lost some of his money by speculation? Young men were sometimes foolhardy,
and perhaps
that was it, and he did not like to tell her.

Well, she would just be still on the subjects that she saw he did not wish to talk about, and work her way slowly into his confidence. She had accomplished even more than she had
hoped for right at first, for Stephen's letters had not led her to think she would be very welcome, and she had come with a high heart of hope that she might first win his love for herself and then his life for God.

For several years now she had been praying for this stranger brother, until, when she was left in the world alone, she had come to feel that God had a special mission for her with him; and so she had dared to come off here alone and uninvited. She was not going to
be daunted
by any little thing. She would try to be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Meantime she thought she understood Philip Earle somewhat, and she wished that he did not live in the same house with her brother. He might be interesting to try to help, taken by himself; but she was fearful that he would not help her with her brother.

Philip had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations in getting help to bring the freight that he found waiting in the little station. For Margaret had laid her plans well, and, knowing the ways of delays on railroads, had shipped
her household goods to this un
known land much in advance of herself, that when she arrived, there might not be so much possibility of sending her away, at least, until
she had ha
d opportunity to try her experi
ment. A girl with a little wider experience of the world, especially of the wild Western world, would not have dared do what she had attempted.

Two stalwart ranchmen Philip enlisted to help him, with their fine team of horses. They were the wildest of the wild men, who drank heavily,
and gambled
recklessly, and cared not at all that man's days are as grass and he is soon cut off, but took life as if they expected to hold it forever against all odds and have their wicked best from it.

Not a word said Philip ab
out Stephen's sister to them. So
mething innate made him shrink from speaking of her to them. They were men such as he would not like to have his own sister know. Not that he objected to them himself. They were good fellows in their way. They could tell a story well, though not always of the cleanest sort, and they were fearless in their bravery.
But
they were men without any moral principles whatever.

Philip, as he drove back home, silent for the most part while the men talked, reflected that his own life was not faultless, and that in the three years that had passed since he came to this country to become a part of it his own
moral principles had fallen quite perceptibly.
He had not noticed it until to
day, but now he knew it.
Somehow
the coming of that girl had showed him where he stood.
But
he still knew what those principles were.
And
these two men must, if possible, be kept from knowing that Miss Halstead had come.

But
how could he manage that? Stephen ought to
have been warned
. What a fool he was not to have taken Steve out to the barn, and had a good talk with him before he went away, for Steve would never think to be careful. He had no idea of the part he ought to play in the protection of his sister.

The two men had
joked
him curiously on the amount and kind of furniture they were putting into the wagons, but Philip had only laughed and put them off with other jokes; and in the code of the wild, free life, they accepted for the time, and questioned no more. They knew that when Stephen came he would tell all. Stephen could not keep a thing to himself when he got among his
boon com
panions. They were a trifle curious to know why Stephen did not come along when he expected so important a shipment of goods, and they were exceedingly curious over the piano, feeling sure that either Stephen or
Philip was about to be married and was going to try to keep the matter quiet.
But
they were obliged to content themselves with Philip's dry answer, "Steve couldn't get away this morning."

Just in sight of the house Stephen came out to meet them, still half-sulky that Philip had insisted on going away alone; and Philip said a few low words to him as he halted the forward wagon, the other two men being together on their ow
n wagon just behind. Stephen de
murred, but Philip's insistent tones meant business, he knew, and without waiting to do more than wave a greeting to the two in the other wagon, he walked
reluctantly
back into the house.

In his
heart
he was rebelling at Philip and at his sister's presence once more. He could see plainly that it was going to hamper his own movements greatly. His friends were good enough for him, and why should his sister be too good to meet them? If she would stay here, she must take what she found.
But
he did as Philip told him. He told his sister that he thought she had better go into her room and shut the door until the wagons were unloaded, as they were rough fellows that Philip had brought up with him to help, and she would
not want to be about with them. He said it gruffly. He did not relish saying it at all. The men were his especial friends. Had it not been that he knew in his heart that Philip was right, he would not have done it at all.

Margaret wondered, but reluctantly did as he suggested, and went thoughtfully over to the window to look out.

She was ri
ght, then. Philip was wild. Ste
phen knew it. Stephen was trying to help him, perhaps, to reform him or something; and that was why he was so reluctant to speak about Philip's share in the household.
And now
Philip had brought some of his friends, some rough men that Stephen did not approve and did not wish her to meet, to the house; and he was trying to protect her.

It was dear of Stephen to care for her that way, and she appreciated it, but she felt that it was
wholly unnecessary
. She felt that her womanhood was sufficient to protect her from insult here in the house of her brother. She was not in the least afraid to be out there and direct where things should go. If Stephen was trying to help Philip to be a better man, then she ought to help, too. It would be another way of helping her brother to help what he was interested
in
.
And
these friends of his, could
they not be helped, too? It was a pity for Stephen to feel so ab
out it. She wished she had had t
ime to argue with him, for she really ought to be out there to tell them where to place things. It would save a lot of trouble later.

Thus
she stood thinking as she heard the stamping of the horses' feet about the front door, the creaking of the wagon-wheels as they ground upon the steps, and then the heavy footsteps, the voices of men, the thuds of heavy weights set down.

She wearied of her imprisonment the more that
there was no window in her room from which she could watch operations;
and at last, when she heard them discussing the best way of getting the piano out of the wagon, she could stand it no longer. She felt that she
was needed
, for they had made absurd suggestions, and her piano was very dear to her heart. She must tell them how the piano men in the East always did. It was ridiculous for her to
be shut
up here, anyway. Stephen might as well learn that now as any time.
For an instant she knelt beside the gray cot and lifted a hurried prayer,—-just why she knew not, for there was nothing to be afraid of, she was sure,—and then with firm hand she turned the knob of her door, and went out among the boxes and
barrels of goods that were all over the room, until she came and stood framed in the sunny doorway, the brilliant noonday glare upon her gold hair and shining full into her dark eyes, her little ruffled sleeve falling away from her white wrist as she raised her hand to shield her eyes.

"Stephen, wait a minute," she called; "I can tell you just how to move that. I watched the men put it in the wagon when it started. It is very easy. You want two rollers. Broomsticks will do."

There
was sudden silence outside the front door. The two strangers turned and stared admiringly and
undisguisedly
. Stephen looked sheepishly triumphant toward Philip, and Philip drew his black brows in a frown of displeasure.

"My sister!" said Stephen airily, recovering himself first
, and waving his hand comprehen
sively toward the two men. He felt rather proud of this new possession of a sister. His own eyes glowed with admiration as he looked at her trim form in its blue and white drapery framed in the rough doorway, one hand shading her eyes, and the animation of interest in her face.

But now
Margaret was surprised. Why did Stephen introduce her if he had considered
these men too rough for her even to appear in their presence? It was curious. Was he afraid of Philip? Ah! They must be friends of Philip's whom Stephen did not admire, and yet whom he had to introduce on his partner's account, and so he wished to evade it by keeping her out of sight. Well, what
mattered
it? A mere introduction was nothing. She would let them see by her manner that they were strangers still.

So
she acknowledged Stephen's naming of them as "Bennett" and "Byron" with a cool little nod, that only served to increase their admiration.
Perhaps the coolness of her man
ner was to them an added charm. Stephen rose in their estimation, being the possessor of so attractive a sister.

After she had given her
wise, clear direc
tions,—which proved to be exceedingly sensible o
nes, they could not but acknowl
edge,—she vanished into the house once more, but not, as they supposed, from hearing. She went quickly into Stephen's bedroom, from whose small window she could watch their movements. She intended to see that her directions
were carried out
and that piano safely landed in the proper place. Just one short instant she was out of hearing
as she opened the other room door, and closed it softly after her, and drew the torn paper that served as a
window-shade
slightly aside so that she could see out. During that instant Byron, who
was famed
among his associates for the terribleness of his oaths and the daring of his remarks, broke forth with a remark to Stephen, prefaced by a fearful oath.
The remark was intended to co
nvey the speaker's intense admi
ration of Stephen's sister, and Stephen himself would have been inclined to take it in the spirit in which it was meant; but Philip, standing close by with darkened countenance, laid a heavy hand on Byron's shoulder, and said in low tones, which yet carried in them a menace, "That kind of talk doesn't go down here!"

It was just then that Margaret's ear
became quickened
to hear, and her intuition told her that she was the subject of the conversation.

"What's the matter with you, man?" said Byron, shaking off the hand. "Can't you bear to hear a woman praised? Perhaps
you'd
like a monopoly of her. But she don't belong to you—" with another oath; "and I say it again, Steve; she's a—"

But
Philip's hands were at Byron's throat, and the word was smothered before it was uttered.

Margaret dropped the paper shade, and stood back pale and trembling, she knew not why. Was Philip against her? Did he hate to hear her praised even, and did he wish her away, or was he defending her? She could not tell, though there had been something strong and true in the flash of Philip's eye as he sprang toward the other
man, that
made her fear lest she misjudge him.

What kind of a country was this to which she had come, anyway?
And
why, if there was need to defend her, had Stephen not been the one to do it, seeing it was Stephen who had warned her to keep away? It was all strange.

Sh
e sat thinking, on the hard littl
e cot bed, looking around on the dismal room, and the pity of her brother's life appealed to her more strongly than it had yet done. She resolved to put away any foolish misgivings, and make a home here that should help him to live his life the best that it could be lived. She turned and knelt a minute beside her brother's bed, and asked help of her unseen Guide, a kind of consecration of herself to the mission that had brought her to this strange country.

Then she went once more to the window, and looking out saw the work of unloading the wagons going on as calmly as if nothing had
happened. There was a firmness around Philip's mouth and chin that was not to
be trifled with,
and his eyes seemed to look apart from the others; but th
e rest were
gayly
at work, whis
tling, calling to one another merrily. Margaret watched them awhile. The one called Byron had a handsome face with heavy, dark waving hair, and big black eyes that were not true, but were interest
ing. She shuddered as she remem
bered the oath he had used to Philip and Stephen, a much milder one than the first, which she had not heard.
The name of her
Saviour
, Jesus Christ!
She had never heard it spoken in that way. It seemed to her the depth of wickedness. She had not yet dreamed of the depths to which wickedness can reach.

It rushed over her in a great wave of pity and sorrow as she watched the muscular arms lifting her furniture, saw the play of fun and daring on the handsome features, and thought that it was the name of his
Saviour
, as well as her own, he had used. His
Saviour
, and he did not know Him, did not recognize, perhaps, what he was doing. O, if he
might be shown
!
If she might help to show him!
It might be there would be a way.

And suddenly her mission widened, and took in Byron, Bennett, Philip, and an unknown company of like companions; and her heart swelle
d with the magnitude of the pos
sibility that God might have chosen her to help all these as well as Stephen.

She watched a long time, and listened, too; but there were no more oaths, and no more fights. She studied the faces of the four men as they worked, especially the man who had spoken that awful word, and she prayed as she watched. It was a way that she had been acquiring during her last three or four years of loneliness.
And
by and by a plan began to open to her mind.

Then she went quietly out to see that the dinner she had started was doing as it should, and prepared to set the table for five instead of three.

By this
time
some packing-boxes and trunks were where they could be reached, and with Stephe
n's help she opened one contain
ing some tabl
e-linen. It gave her much satis
faction to be able to have a
tablecloth
the first time she gave a dinner party in her new home.

The goods
were all unloaded from the wag
ons and set under cover, and the two helpers were mopping their perspiring brows, while Philip drove his own wagon to the barn, when Margaret came to the door once more.

"Dinner is ready now," she remarked, quite as if they had all been invited, "and I suppose you would like to wash yo
ur hands before you come in. You
will find the basin and towels out by the pump at the back door, Mr. Byron and Mr. Bennett." She had watched long enough from the window to know which was which, and she let the slightest glance of her eyes recognize each now, a glance that set them at an immeasurable distance. "And, Stephen, please hurry, because everything will get cold."

Stephen's eyes lit up with pleasure.
This was the kind of thing he liked;
but it was not what Philip would like, and he knew it. There was no telling but Philip would pitch the two guests out the door and down the hill when he came in and saw them preparing to sit down at the table.

They drew a long and simultaneous whistle when they entered the door together and saw the table draped in snowy white. They were none of them used to
tablecloths
.

Margaret had cleared a space around the table and arranged boxes for seats where there were not enough chairs
;
so there was room for all. Before each
place
she had laid a snowy napkin. To the young fellows so long unused to this necessity of civilization they looked of
a dazzling
whiteness, and each became imme
diately conscious of his own poor appearance. She had opened her trunk and found silver
knives and forks
and spoons, and all were set as she would have set the table in the East for a luncheon of a few friends. She knew no other way. There was enough in this to awe the two wild Western cowboys, who under other circumsta
nces might have proved to be un
welcome guests.

There was a touch of refinement, too, in the few green leaves and blossoms that Margaret had gathered in her morning tour around the house, wild blossoms, it is true, and nothing but weeds in the eyes of the men who daily and unheedingly trod over their like; but here, set in this snowy
linen, held in a tiny crystal vase that had also been carefully packed in Margaret's trunk, they took on a new beauty, and were not recognized as belonging to the world in which they lived.

It was like the girl, impulsive and poetical, that she had kept the whole dinner waiting just a minute while she found that vase and added the touch of beauty to the already inviting table. Who knew but the flowers might speak to those men of the God who made them?

And
the flowers lifted up their pink, dainty faces, and breathed a silent grace about that board at which they all sat down, creating a kind of embarrassment among the strangely selected company.

It was just as they were sitting down that Philip entered, and paused in the doorway at the sight, his brow darkening.

"Please sit o
ver there, Mr. Earle," said Mar
garet, passing a plate of steaming soup to the place indicated; and Philip, hesitating, half-reluctant, sat silently down; but his eye ran vividly around the table like the threatening of lightning, in one warning glance.

Philip's look, however,
was not needed
. The spoons and the napkins and flowers, and above all the young woman, had awed for once the undaunted souls who
were noted
all about that region for their daring and wickedness. Margaret had rummaged among the tin cans on the shelf of the little cupboard in the corner, and had compounded a most delicious soup with the aid of ajar of beef-extract, a can of baked beans, and another of tomatoes. To be sure, its recipe was not to be found in any
cookbook
ever published; but it was
none the less
appreciated for that.

There was half a loaf of baker's stale bread
,
which she had toasted and cut into crisp little squares for the soup, and there was
corn-meal
wherewith she had made a
johnny
-cake or corn bread of flakiness and deliciousness known only to New England cooks. Not even the old mammies of the South could equal it.

It was not
exactly
a menu for an Eastern lunch party, but with the aid of another glass of jelly from a box hastily pried open it seemed a feast to the hungry young men who had been their own cooks for long, weary months of famine.

Bennett was tall and lanky, with freckled face, red, straight hair, and white eyelashes heavily shading light-blue eyes. He had a hard, straight
mouth,
and a scar over his left eye, and was known among his associates as a dead shot. His voice had a hard, cruel ring when he spoke. Margaret did not like his face.

She sat at her end of the table, pouring coffee, or slipping quietly over to the stove, waiting upon their needs, diffusing a softening, silencing influence about the table.

The old woman crept from her duties in the new
kitchen which
she was scrubbing and purifying, to peep inside the door, and wonder at the strange hush that hovered over the usually
hilarious company. She knew the reputation of those young men, and could not understand their silence. Then she looked at the sweet presence of the girl as she presided over the meal, and shook her head, wondering again as she crept silently away.

It was after the last crumb was finished and they had risen from the table,—a mingled look, half of satisfaction in the meal, half of relief that it was over, in their faces,—that Margaret dared her part.

She had made up her mind to do it while she was preparing dinner, and her heart had thumped sometimes so hard that she had scarcely dared try to eat after she had decided upon it. Some rebuke
must be given
to the man who had uttered the name of Jesus Christ in that awful way. What she should say she did not know. "Lord, give me courage, give me words, give me opportunity!" had been the silent plea during the
dinnertime
.