Читать книгу The Girl of O. K. Valley - Robert Watson - Страница 7

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It seemed to Kathie as if she had hardly fallen asleep, when the loud, imperative tingling of an alarm clock aroused her. She looked up. Lizbeth already was on the floor. She, at any rate, was no lazy lie-a-bed.

"Time to get up!" she shouted. "Work for you starts to-day. It's Sunday, but ranching folks have always something that must be done Sundays. I'm going to church at Vernock at eleven, so we shall have to get good and busy."

Kathie needed no second bidding. She had had a refreshing sleep and felt that at last she was about to be of some practical use in a practical world.

Lizbeth threw her an old, kilted petticoat, a sweater and a pair of heavy boots.

"Get into these," she said. "They're what you need for the work we have to do."

Kathie dressed hurriedly, laughing gaily at her appearance as she glanced in the mirror. But suddenly her expression changed, her eyes opened in astonishment and she looked around.

"Why, Lizbeth!" she cried tremulously, "someone has been through my trunk. See!—my things are lying scattered around everywhere. And—and—and——" She stepped short as she gazed at her cousin and the truth of the whole matter dawned on her.

Lizbeth laughed. "That's nothing," she replied. "I knew your trunk wasn't full of diamonds, and you were too tired last night to show me what you had, so I just turned the key and raised the lid and had a good look all by myself. Besides," she added, "girls always inspect one another's clothes and trinkets. If you and I are to live together, we might as well be quite free with each other."

Kathie was too taken aback to say very much. That a stranger should take liberties with her belongings,—liberties that her own mother would not have dreamed of taking—the indignity of it overwhelmed her.

She looked at her dainty, ivory comb and brush lying on the bureau. These were new; a gift from an old Irish lady-friend on her leaving Ballywhallen; and she had thought so much of them that she had never used them, being content with an older and a plainer set that she had.

"But you've been using these," she exclaimed. And tears came to her eyes.

"That's right! Be a grouch and play the kid," replied Lizbeth. Then with some heat:—"Do you think I injured them even if I did use them. I'm clean skinned and clean blooded. See!"

She bared her arms and her bosom to Kathie's gaze.

"Oh,—it isn't that! You know it isn't that, I mean. But there are some things—like hair-brushes and combs and toothbrushes that we don't like others to use."

"Well, you needn't get scared about your toothbrush, or anything else, after this, now I know how touchy you are," remarked Lizbeth, in a tone of slight conciliation. "But it's time we were making a start. It's getting late."

Kathie followed her down the wooden stairway and out into the gloriously refreshing morning air whose spring crispness had not yet evaporated in the drying sunshine.

They went across the yard and into the barn, down between the long row of stalls where the cows were lowing and swishing their tails, impatient to be milked.

With a little three-legged stool and a pail, Lizbeth taught Kathie how it was done, and soon the latter was bending forward, the pail between her knees, her check against the animal's soft, comfortable flank, and with deft fingers was filling her pail with warm, creamy milk. It was a new and strange experience and so delightful to one who had never seen the inside of a cow-barn before. She enjoyed the labour and worked hard, trying her best to keep up with her energetic cousin, who had already finished her own row and had started at the other end of Kathie's.

When the last cow was relieved, Kathie rose and stretched herself. It surprised her to discover how stiff and strained her back had become and how cramped, and sore, and almost useless her fingers had grown.

"That's one good job done," remarked Lizbeth. "I'll mount Jess and take the cows to the range. That's their pasture over there; up the hill and beyond the old barn, right on to the fence at the woods.

"Take this milk into the dairy and fill up the empty cans there ready for Jim to take to Vernock. Dad will see him loaded up himself. That's dad's own job. He likes to keep an eye on what milk goes out, then he can tell what money to expect coming in.

"Yes!—and here's the broom. You can get all the water you want from the pump. Clean up the barn, swill the stalls out to the middle there, then flush everything down the gutters."

In business-like fashion, Lizbeth loosed the cows from their chain halters and with an encouraging word here and a smart rap there she soon had the barn clear of them. She loosed her horse, Jess, from a neighbouring stall, jumped astride, bareback, and was off with a shout.

Kathie was left to her own devices.

The work was all such a new experience to her and besides she had not yet got quite over the weariness of her six thousand miles journey. But, although her poor thin arms were tired and paining, she set-to and kept at it with a will. She did not know just how nicely it had to be done, and, in fear that her work might be adversely criticised, she went at it carefully and laboriously and long before she had finished, Lizbeth was back again.

"I'm going in now to get ready for the church, Kathie," she said. "Wing does the cooking here, so, when you're through you can tidy up the bedroom a bit; then, if we get the milking done early enough this afternoon, you can go to the church for the evening service:—that is, if you care to. On Sundays we don't do any more work than we actually have to.

"Kathie!" she continued.

"Yes!"

"I wish to ask you something." She stood back from her cousin and posed in pride and confidence. "Look at my face; look at my arms and at my figure. Kathie,—do you think I am pretty:—really and truly pretty?"

The wind was blowing Lizbeth's hair. Her eyes were langourous; her cheeks were aglow with the glories of the morning; her white teeth shone from between her full, parted lips. She had the form of a goddess.

Kathie replied unhesitatingly and in admiration. "Yes, Lizbeth, you are pretty; you are beautiful. How happy and how thankful you ought to be!"

"I'm glad you think so, Kathie," replied the coquette with a condescending smile. "I love to be pretty,—to be beautiful. It means everything to me—to any woman—even away out here in this humdrum, out-of-the-way corner of the Universe."

Kathie sighed slightly.

"You know," went on Lizbeth, "you are pretty, too—in a way—a sickly sort of prettiness:—the prettiness of a hot-house plant or a hospital ward:—not the prettiness the men hereabout will go silly over. They're simply crazy on figure and size No!—I can't say that I am jealous of you, Kathie. I think I love my own loveliness best."

With a heartless laugh she turned and went off.

Kathie followed later and partook of her delayed breakfast, served up by the grumbling and muttering shuffler, Wing, whose slink and creep and general greasiness she felt most repulsive.

Lizbeth was upstairs dressing, and, half an hour before time for worship, she came down, robed in a clinging white silk gown of the very latest design and crowned with a large, white hat profuse with ostrich feathers. A parasol and her Bible were tucked under her arm. She sailed out, buttoning up her gloves with as much of the airs and graces of a lady as she knew how; perfectly conscious of the pleasing picture her fresh, robust loveliness presented.

Jim, a young ranch-hand, was waiting at the door with the buggy, to drive her in to Vernock.

After she had gone, Kathie fixed up her bedroom. And when she finished she felt tired and unstrung.

The next hour or two were her own, so she lay down to rest. She tried hard to sleep, but could not. She had reached that stage of physical exhaustion where sleep is an impossibility. Her brain was busy and her body was weary. From side to side she tossed in a feverish nervousness. Although her window was wide open, she felt oppressed. The air seemed to be closing in and tightening around her. She was seized with a longing to scream out; but she fought against the impulse.

And it was then that she bethought herself of the old mellow-toned violin upon which her father had taught her to pour out her pent-up feelings. How quickly her troubles would vanish, if she were only able to poise it against her throat and run her fingers over the sensitive strings once more! She recalled the miserly love and fond care which her father used to bestow upon it. How eagerly he would lift it from its black case! How transporting was his music! How reluctantly and tenderly he would put the violin away again!

She felt the thrill of the moments long gone by, when he placed the instrument and the bow in her hands for the first time; when he taught her some of the wonderful touches by which, as if by magic, he charmed the music from its empty shape. She saw again her father's pale, gaunt face; the eyes of fire; the thin, tapering fingers which never tired.

But, alas! like all else that was dear to her, he was gone; so was the worn violin. Only her thoughts remained; bitter in their very sweetness.

It had been a valuable old violin—the costliest and most treasured of all her father's possessions. But it had been taken away and sold, with so many other things that were dear to her in the old home in Ballywhallen.

She felt the uncontrollable taking hold of her again, for all of her thoughts seemed to lead back to sorrow and tears. Still—she might read. Yes!—there was no violin, but surely there were books—something—anything to make her forget.

She rose and passed slowly down the wooden stairway in her quest. Half-way, she encountered her uncle going up. She put out her hand and touched his arm.

"Uncle," she inquired, "is there anything downstairs that I may read, just for a little while till Lizbeth comes back? I am so tired and—I cannot sleep or rest."

Her uncle grunted.

"We don't go much on reading here, lass—we're generally too busy for that. But, if you look, I think you will find a Bible and a ready-reckoner on top of the kitchen cabinet. Take your pick,—they're both very good books in their way.

"But it's funny to hear of anybody tired and not able to rest. It's an uncommon complaint on a ranch."

Kathie sighed and passed down to the kitchen, where the smell of boiling broth predominated.

She went through the open doorway and into the bright sunshine. There was a tranquillity in all around. A warm breeze was blowing. It played with her hair and quieted her throbbing temples, soothing her like a mother's touch. She walked on past the barns, through the orchard, up the green incline and on to the crest of the hill, among the flaring yellow sun-flowers.

It was calm and peaceful up there.

She lay down on the grassy slope. Away in the distance was the lake; behind her the densely planted wood of firs. She stretched her limbs and looked up to the great expanse of blue and to the white, rolling clouds. She grew dreamy and languid; then, gently, gently, she floated into that blissful unconsciousness she had courted so much in vain up in her bedroom.

Kathie dreamed of her babyhood; of her mother; of the little village of Ballywhallen by the sea; of the rugged headland which stood bold and defiant against the buffeting of the Ocean. She saw herself snuggling safely in the shelter of the old, shelving rock, with the salt-flavoured wind whistling overhead, the waves booming down on the shingly shore and the seagulls shrieking and complaining.

Then she fancied someone came and looked down on her as she lay: someone broad, and strong, and handsome; clear-eyed and sympathetic; someone she had seen before, although where, she could not recall; someone whom she trusted and with whom she felt secure.

At last, like a faint echo, a voice floated up from the far away. It came nearer and grew louder. Suddenly, Kathie felt herself jolted and shaken up. She opened her eyes and blinked in the strong light.

Her disturber was Lizbeth, holding her horse by the bridle;—angry and rude—the reality, so different from her dreams; Lizbeth in her working garb again, calling her from refreshment to work, declaiming her laziness;—sarcastic—impertinent—furious.

Kathie sprang up with a momentary flash of defiance in her eyes, but quickly it faded away. What was the use, she thought? This was the first day of her new life; her cousin was the mistress; she was but the servant. It would never do to start in quarrelsome and rebellious.

She answered meekly and disjointedly.

"I'm sorry, Lizbeth. It must be late. I've been asleep. I did not mean to—but—I feel better now—and ready. I hope——"

"Oh! cut out the hoping," interrupted Lizbeth. "It is past milking time. You've been asleep for hours, while we've been searching all over the ranch for you. Get back down to the barn quickly!"

Lizbeth mounted and trotted off to gather in the cows, while Kathie turned humbly toward the house.

And thus was the work of the morning repeated in the afternoon, as the work of one day was duplicated in the next: each day in the weekly cycle with the additions of its own special duties; seldom changing, never ending, until, to Kathie, the novelty became a drudgery and the drudgery began to lie upon her young shoulders like the burden of Atlas.

In a week she was able to ride a horse. In a month she could stick fearlessly on the bare back of Jess when that equine lady was in her most frolicsome mood.

After all, life on the ranch, with all its labours, was not without its pleasures. To Kathie, the greatest of these pleasures was the growing knowledge that rich, red blood was capering merrily in her veins, where a watery fluid had previously crept sluggishly onward. Her cheeks no longer held that deathly pallor of a self-condemned invalid; her eyes were clear and bright and her arms were fast becoming rounded and firm, in harmony with the new sensation of suppleness which the dry, clarified air and the open life were fast giving to her entire body.

Gone from her were the frailty and the little habitual cough; gone was the dread thought of a weakness inherited; the foolish, yes! the criminal thought which creates and nurtures a bastard child to its own vile imaginings and maims and kills where disease has never been.

Kathie did not assume the dowdy, smug rotundity, so common to many of the ranchers' daughters. She was slender of figure, though full and firm bosomed; her eyes had caught at last the consciousness of the awakening of those luscious charms of womanhood which had been lying dormant within her and had only so lately been aroused by the call of all the nature-beauties surrounding her daily life in this Garden of Eden where everything grew and fructified as in no other land or clime.

She preferred the quiet tenor of the orchards and the wood to the social atmosphere of Vernock. All her precious, spare moments were spent in nature's solitude. Few indeed were the people privileged to set eyes on Kathie; but young and old alike who caught the glimpse, turned and looked again. Yet, she was modestly unconscious of this effect of her presence on others. She resented the familiar stare of the farm-hand and the impertinent gape of the chinaman, as she did the patronage of the visiting ranchers and the attempted, coarse civilities of some of their grinning sons. She shunned their would-be sociability. When they called unexpectedly, she would quietly slip off. If their visits were anticipated, she kept busy in the dairy or in the barns, out of the way. In her love of retirement, she was applauded and aided by the cousin, Lizbeth, who enjoyed the field to herself and resented even a surreptitious glance in any feminine direction but her own, and it was with an ever-increasing sense of annoyance that she perceived in Kathie a growing beauty which would not long be kept hidden away and an indescribable charm of manner which she knew she, herself, could never hope to acquire.

In all the petty ways of which only a jealously disposed woman is mistress, she vented her wrath. She increased Kathie's work and, in the process, reduced her own. She found fault in everything; she nagged and threatened, and succeeded fairly well in quelling any spark of spirit which Kathie might have possessed.

With a hopeless kind of fatalism, Kathie bore it all quietly and uncomplainingly, for well she knew—she had been reminded only too often—the humble position she filled at Jackson's Ranch.

It never occurred to Kathie that she was earning her own livelihood in a land where woman-help was scarce; that her labour had a considerable market value; that dozens of ranchers would have been glad to give her good wages in return for her services. She seemed simply to be looking forward to the time when she would feel that the bread she ate and the clothes she wore were her very own, the fruits of her own labour, won by the skill of her brain and the strength of her body.