Читать книгу Forlorn River - Zane Grey - Страница 8

INA spent the rest of the morning under the pine tree in the grove; and after she had recovered her equanimity she applied some solid and tolerant thought to the problem which confronted her.

The complexity of that problem would have to be understood and dealt with as it became obvious. She would not try to cross any bridges before she came to them. Disappointment must not be allowed to get a hold on her.

She had lunch alone with her mother. Kate had gone to Hammell with Mr. Blaine. Ina exerted herself to be amusing and sympathetic, to reach her mother, and was not wholly unsuccessful. She had quickly sensed that if she let herself be guided by the desires and whims of her family there would be no strife. Mrs. Blaine seemed preoccupied with the innumerable duties of a rancher’s wife, when these duties had mostly been made impossible for her. For thirty years she had been a slave to labor, early and late, to the imperative need of saving. She now occupied a position where these things, though fixed in habit and mind, must not be thought of at all. It was impossible to forget them, and her trouble rose from the consequent bewilderment. The truth was, she was a sorely puzzled and unhappy woman because the circumstances of the Blaines had vastly changed. Yet she did not know this. It would have been natural for her to talk to Ina about the past, and their trials and joys, about all the homely tasks that had once been and were now no more, about neighbors as poor as they used to be, gossip, blame, worries, praise, and the possibility of a manly young rancher who might come wooing Ina. But as she had to talk of things relating to this new and different life, she was no longer natural. Ina thought her mother a rather pathetic person, yet recalling the severe toil and endless complaint of earlier years she concluded this was to be preferred.

“Mother, tell me about the Ides,” asked Ina, among other casual queries.

“Well, I’m sorry to say the Blaines and the Ides are not the neighbors they used to be,” replied Mrs. Blaine, reflectively. “I reckon it’s your father’s fault. Amos Ide has made money, but it’s never got him anywhere. He thinks we’re stuck up. Mrs. Ide these late years has kept more to herself. She used to go to church regular. But since the parson preached about prodigal sons she has stayed away. I haven’t been over there in ages. But I’ve seen Hettie. She has grown up. Fred was sweet on her once, but lately he’s taken to a town girl.”

“How about Ben?” inquired Ina.

“He’s a wild-horse hunter now, the cowboys say.”

“Sort of a—an outcast, isn’t he?” went on Ina.

“The story goes that Amos Ide gave Ben a choice between plowin’ fields an’ livin’ his wild life in the hills. Ben preferred to leave home. It was hard on his mother.”

Ina gained some little grain of comfort from her mother’s talk, and she decided to go over and call on Mrs. Ide and Hettie some day. But once the idea had come, it gave her no peace. Ina spent the early part of the afternoon unpacking her belongings and changing her room into a more comfortable and attractive abode. Books, photographs, pennants, served her in good stead, and were reminders of happy college days. While she was thus occupied her mind was busy with the Ides, and when she had finished she decided to go that very afternoon to visit them.

Once upon a time there had been a well-trodden path between Tule Lake Ranch and the farm of the Ides. Ina had observed that it had been plowed up in places, and fenced in others. She would take the lane out to the road, and upon her return wait for Dall and Marvie to pick her up on their way home from school.

While changing her dress Ina suddenly realized that she was being rather particular about her appearance, something which since her arrival home had not caused her concern. She could not deny that she had unconsciously desired to look well for the Ides. “What Ide? Do I mean Mrs. Ide or Hettie?” she asked, gravely, of the dark-eyed, fair-faced girl in the mirror. The answer was a blush. Ina became somewhat resentful with her subtle new self.

It happened that Kate saw Ina come down the front stairs.

“For the land’s sake!” she ejaculated, in genuine surprise. “Goin’ to a party?” Her hawk eyes swept over Ina from head to toe and a flush and a twinge appeared on her sallow face.

The look and the tone completely inhibited Ina’s natural frank impulse, which was to tell where she was going.

“Like my dress, Kate?” she asked, coolly. “Aunt Eleanor got it for me in St. Louis. It’s only a simple afternoon dress, but quite up to date.”

“I’m not crazy about it,” snapped Kate.

Ina laughed and went out. Her elder sister bade fair to be quite amusing. Ina’s genuine love of home and family had buried for the whole of her school period certain irritating traits, especially peculiar to Kate. They were recalled.

“It almost looks as if Kate does not like my coming home, and especially my clothes. Wait till she sees my graduation dress!”

There was a clean footpath along one side of the lane, and when Ina started down it she found herself facing the sage mountains, far across the level lake basin land, and the bulge of red rocky ground beyond. The afternoon sun, low in the sky, cast a soft light upon the round gray domes and the beautiful slopes. Suddenly her heart beat quicker and fuller. An old love of the open country, of lonely hills, of the wind in her face and the fragrance of sage revived in her. That was another reason for her inward joy at returning to the scenes of her childhood. Moreover, as she gazed intently, these mountains of gray, with the shadows of purple in the clefts, seemed to call to her. It was a distinct sensation almost like an audible voice. The beckoning hills! Then it occurred to her that beyond them lay Forlorn River. She checked her thought and hurried on, with pensive gaze on the black buttes of lava to the west.

Before she realized it she had come to the Ide farm. The same old barred gate! The untrimmed hedge! The green shady yard and the lane that led into the old house seemed exactly to fit her expectations. Almost she expected to see Rover, Ben’s dog, come bounding out to meet her. But Rover did not come. Ina entered the gate, and found that habit led her round to the back door. Yard and house had the homely appearance of use and comfort. Ina crossed the wide porch and knocked on the door.

It opened at once, revealing a pleasant-faced girl with fine blue eyes and curly hair. She had freckles that Ina remembered. She wore a gingham apron; her sleeves were rolled up to firm round elbows; in one hand she held a broom. For a moment she stared at Ina.

“Hettie, don’t you know me?” asked Ina.

“I—I do and—I don’t,” gasped the girl, with her face lighting.

“I’m Ina Blaine.”

“Oh—of course—I knew you were, but you’re so different—so—so changed and lovely,” replied Hettie in charming confusion. “We heard you were home. I’m glad to see you. Come in. Mother is here.”

“Hettie, you’ve grown up wonderfully, much more than Dall or Marvie,” said Ina, as she entered the big light kitchen that made her remember raids on the cupboard. “And I can return your compliment.”

“Thanks,” replied Hettie, blushing. “You always used to say nice things, Ina. Come in and see mother.” She led the way into the large sitting room.

“Mother,” announced Hettie, to the sad, sweet-faced woman who rose from beside a table, “this is Ina Blaine, come to call on us the very next day after she got home.”

“Mrs. Ide, I hope you remember me,” said Ina, advancing with a little contraction of her heart. Faintly she grasped at an affinity that brought her close to this woman.

“Ina Blaine!” exclaimed Mrs. Ide, in a slightly quavering voice, making haste to adjust her spectacles. “I ought to remember. That name is almost as familiar as Hettie’s. . . . So you are Ina! I wouldn’t have known you. Welcome home to Tule Lake, my dear. It was like you to come to us at once. I told them last night you’d never change.”

“Oh, I’m changed, grown up, Mrs. Ide,” replied Ina, taking the proffered hand, and then yielding to a warm impulse she kissed the faded cheek. “But I’m happy to be home, and I—I intend to be as I used to be.”

“Of course you will,” responded Mrs. Ide. “Even though you are a young woman now. Come, sit here an’ tell us all about yourself.”

Ina had never before found such inspiring listeners and she talked for an hour, telling all about her school life, and just touching at the end on her arrival home.

“It’s good to hear you, Ina,” murmured Mrs. Ide. “I hope an’ pray the changes that have come will not make you unhappy.”

“I shall not let myself be unhappy,” replied Ina, spiritedly. “I confess I’d have liked to find my home—my people the same as when I left them. But—they’re not. I’ll adjust myself to it.”

“Are you going to come to see us occasionally?” inquired Mrs. Ide, gravely.

“Same as I used to,” replied Ina, with feeling.

“Your father will not like that, Ina. He is a hard man, as hard in some ways as Amos Ide.”

“We have already clashed,” said Ina, naïvely. “To my discomfiture.”

“Mother, Ina’s as spunky as when she used to quarrel with Ben,” spoke up Hettie, impulsively.

Manifestly it was an unfortunate allusion, for the older woman appeared to retreat within herself. Ina regretted the reference to Ben, for she knew she must say something about him, and was at a loss.

“Yes, I remember Ben and our quarrels as well as anything,” she replied, simply. “It would be nice to—to talk over old times, but we’ll leave that till another day. Good-by, Mrs. Ide. I shall come to see you often. . . . Hettie, will you walk down the lane with me? I’m going to meet Marvie and Dall.”

“That I shall,” rejoined Hettie, heartily.

But once out of the house, Ina felt the constraint that bound Hettie as well as herself. She would make an end of that. But despite her overtures, it was not until they were well down the lane that she hit upon the right way to reach Hettie.

Suddenly turning to Hettie, she had queried, bluntly: “Now tell me about Ben.”

Hettie turned so pale that the freckles stood out prominently upon her face, and her eyes filled with tears.

“You’ve heard?” she asked, huskily.

“A lot of gossip,” replied Ina, swiftly. “I don’t believe a single word of it. Hettie, tell me the truth.”

“Oh, Ina—that’s so good of you,” burst out Hettie, almost sobbing, and she seized Ina’s hand. “There’s not so much to tell. Ben loved the wild country and wild horses. He couldn’t help it. Father drove him away from home—made an outcast of him. It broke mother’s heart—and it’s breaking mine. All kinds of lies have been flying around about Ben. Of late, since that man Setter came to Tule Lake, they’re growing worse.”

“I met Setter. I don’t like him or trust him, Hettie. He said some hard things about Ben’s friend, a cowboy from Nevada.”

“I hate him, Ina,” flashed Hettie, with a dark flush. “I could tell you a reason outside of his lies about Ben.”

“You needn’t. I’ve met and seen many men these four years of my absence. . . . Hettie, I just cannot believe Ben would steal. I can’t.”

“Ina, I know he wouldn’t,” rejoined Hettie, eloquently. “It’s not easy to tell how I know, but it’s in my heart.”

“Have your family lost faith in Ben?”

“Yes, all except mother. But it’s hope now, more than real faith. Father has broken her. Ben was his pride, if you remember. The disappointment has made father old. . . . Oh, such a mess to make over a boy’s love of horses! I grow sick when I think of it.”

“Well, Hettie, it seems we’re of the same mind,” went on Ina, soberly. “Now it’s not what we must do, but how.”

“Ina, I don’t—understand you,” faltered Hettie.

“We’ve got to save Ben before it’s too late,” declared Ina, and the strange sweet warmth that seemed liberated by her conscious words brought the hot blood to her cheeks.

“We’ve got to! You and I?” asked Hettie, in low, wondering voice.

“Yes. You’re his sister and I’m—his old playmate. Probably his only friends, except the cowboy from Nevada. . . . Hettie, I’m forming impressions of that cowboy Setter claimed was a horse thief. I believe he’s some one who’s standing by Ben. He has found Ben alone, forsaken, an outcast. Perhaps he too loves wild horses. Hettie, we’ve got to see these boys, especially Ben, if we have to ride out to Forlorn River.”

“I’ll go, though father will half kill me when he finds out,” declared Hettie, in awe.

“As a last resort, we’ll do it,” returned Ina. “But let us wait. Something may happen. We might get word to Ben. He might hear of my return and want to see me.”

“He’d want to, Ina, but he’d never come, even if you sent him word,” said Hettie, sadly.

“Poor Ben! What a pass he must have come to! . . . Well, here’s the end of your lane and I think that’s Marvie coming way down the road. I’ll see you soon again, Hettie. Meanwhile remember we are archplotters.”

“Oh, Ina Blaine, I could hug you!” cried Hettie, in passionate gratefulness.

“Well, do it!”

But Hettie turned and fled down the lane.

* * * *

Saturday came and passed. Ina spent it with Marvie out in the open—a long beautiful spring day, full of laughter and excitement, yet with moments for appreciation of the soft gray sage slopes above the brook where Marvie loved to fish, and lonely intervals when she dreamed.

Through some machination of Kate’s, that almost roused Ina’s temper, Dall was not permitted to accompany them. So Ina, not to disappoint Marvie, had gone alone with him.

It was dark when they drove into the lane of Tule Lake Ranch. Ina, as she shuffled wet and disheveled into the bright kitchen, did not need sister Kate’s wry look to appreciate her appearance. She did not care. She was tired, and strangely happy. Her father’s displeasure with Marvie, her mother’s divided state of mind, Kate’s manifest disapproval, had not the least effect upon her. What a day to bring back the past! She hardly remembered even the thrilling incidents, let alone the multitudinous commonplace ones.

Marvie had proved to be such a brother as any sister must love. He made Ina a chum. How little did her dignity and schooling impress him! Ina had shared everything. She had driven, walked, climbed, and waded; she had fallen off a slippery bank into the rushes; she had rowed a boat while Marvie had fished with intense hopefulness; she had helped him fight a fish that got away.

Ina, spurred despite herself by Kate’s peremptory call from below, made haste with her bath and change of clothes. Then she hurried down to have late supper alone with Marvie. Some one evidently had crushed the boy’s exuberant reminiscences of the day. Ina felt that nothing could crush her remembrance of it nor take from her the nameless joy. She was cheerfully oblivious of Kate, and soon won her mother to keen interest in the adventures of the day.

“Wal,” said her father, “reckon it was fun for you. But you’re growed up now. Marvie ought to have knowed better than to take you to Forlorn River.”

“But we only went to the mouth of the river above Hammell,” protested the boy. “Not over the hills.”

“Why not over the hills?” queried Ina, quickly. “I want to ride everywhere. Next Saturday we’ll go to the lake.”

Mr. Blaine shot a significant glance at his wife, as if to remind her of some prediction he had made, and he got up with a little cough that Ina well remembered.

“Marvie, you’d make a wild tomboy out of your sister,” he said, severely. “You shan’t have no horse an’ buggy next Saturday.”

“But Paw, Ina can’t walk all over,” protested Marvie, getting red in the face. “I’d just as lief walk.”

“Ina will have some one to drive her around,” replied Mr. Blaine.

“Ahuh! That Sewell McAdam fellow, for one, I s’pose,” ejaculated Marvie, in imminent disgust.

“Sewell McAdam? Who is he?” inquired Ina, glancing from Marvie to her father.

“Reckon the boy guessed right that time,” laughed Mr. Blaine. “I forgot to tell you about Sewell. He’s a fine young chap from Klamath. Father’s a friend of mine. Owns the big three C stores. You’ll meet Sewell. I asked him for Sunday dinner.”

“I shall be pleased, of course,” said Ina, dubiously, with her eyes on Marvie. The boy did not show that he would share her pleasure. After supper, in the sitting room, when they were alone except for Dall, Ina put a query to him anent this young man who was coming Sunday.

“He’s a city fellar, Ina,” replied Marvie. “Kind of a willie-boy who puts on style.”

“Don’t you like him, Marvie?”

“Haven’t any reason not to, but you bet I wouldn’t take him fishin’.”

“That’s very conclusive,” said Ina, thoughtfully. “I don’t remember dad inviting young men to dinner Sundays.”

“Ina, I heard somethin’—if you won’t tell,” whispered Marvie, swiftly glancing round. “Dall knows, for she was with me.”

“Cross my heart,” replied Ina, solemnly.

“We heard paw an’ Mr. McAdam talkin’ out by the barn. They had some kind of a big deal on. This McAdam man is the father of Sewell, who’s comin’ Sunday. He’s awful rich. Owns stores. He an’ paw are goin’ into somethin’, an’ you figgered in it.”

“Marvie! What are you saying?” exclaimed Ina in amaze.

“Ask Dall,” returned the boy.

“Ina, I heard pa say if Sewell got sweet on you pretty quick it’d work out fine,” answered Dall, her eyes bright and round with importance.

“Did you tell anyone?” asked Ina.

“I told mother, an’ Kate heard. Mother seemed sort of fussed, like she is so much. Kate chased us out of the kitchen. She was mad as thunder. Kate’s city beau is a friend of this Sewell McAdam.”

“Don’t tell anyone else, please,” said Ina, earnestly.

“I promise,” rejoined the boy, with loving gaze upon her. “But, Ina, if you let this city fellar come courtin’ you, I—I’ll never take you fishin’ again.”

He ended stoutly, though manifestly fearful that he had overstepped his brotherly limit. Ina’s heart warmed to him, and she acted upon the feeling by giving him a kiss.

“Don’t worry, Marvie. We’ll go fishing whenever you’ll take me.”

They were interrupted then, and Ina had no opportunity to think over this odd gossip until she went to her room. At first the idea seemed ridiculous and she endeavored to dismiss it. But other considerations added their peculiar significance; and it was not long before she confessed the exasperating complexity of the situation. Only for a moment did it dismay her. Ina was dauntless. But to oppose the wills and desires of her people hurt her. That seemed inevitable. She did not determine upon any course of action. It was necessary to await developments. Nevertheless, she looked forward with something of curiosity and humor to the meeting with Mr. Sewell McAdam.

Sunday morning acquainted Ina with the fact that for the Sabbath, at least, much of the old home life of the Blaines had been retained.

There was indeed more elaborate dressing, especially on the part of Kate, than Ina could remember. Her sister showed more than ever that she was a country girl unduly influenced by city associations and ambitions. The boys, it appeared, except Marvie, had their own horses and buggies to drive to church. Mr. Blaine drove the rest of the family in a two-seated vehicle that Ina imagined she recognized. She and Dall rode on the front seat with their father.

The village church, of gray and weather-beaten boards, the young men loitering round the entrance, self-conscious in their shiny clothes, the girls in bright dresses and bonnets, and the horses hitched in the shade—these looked precisely to Ina the same as before she had left home.

As they entered, her father leading up the aisle, very pompous, her mother trying to live up to her part, and Kate proud as a peacock, Ina became aware that they, and particularly herself, were the cynosure of many eyes. This fact did not embarrass her, but it quite prevented a free range to her curiosity and interest. Some time elapsed after they were seated before she recognized anyone. Ina sat between Marvie and Dall, both of whom added not a little to her self-consciousness. Marvie, with his handsome face to the front, serious as was becoming to the occasion, kept slyly pinching her and making slight signs for her to notice some young men in the pew in front. Ina did not look directly, because she felt she was being stared at. Dall was tremendously concerned with what she evidently thought was a sensation Ina was creating.

The preacher was strange to Ina, a plain middle-aged man of serious gentle mien, who had a fine voice and talked simply and earnestly. Ina had listened to poorer preachers in big city churches. After the sermon when all bowed during the prayer Marvie leaned close to Ina and whispered like an imp: “That’s Sewell McAdam right in front, settin’ with Kate’s city beau. Couple of slick ganders! But they ain’t foolin’ me.”

Ina hid her face and cautioned Marvie, by both hand and whisper. She found herself, without any apparent justice or reason, quite in accord with Marvie, and she feared he might discover it.

On the moment, however, Ina did not have opportunity to satisfy her lively curiosity. And when the congregation filed out she soon found herself besieged by old acquaintances, schoolmates grown up, as she was, and people who had been neighbors and friends. There were a good many warm welcomes accorded her; yet she did not miss the poisoned honey of some tongues or the expressive glances of many eyes. Ina was quick to grasp that her father’s rise in the world of Tule Lake had engendered envy and contempt. She met the keen inquisitive eyes of motherly women who no doubt were wondering if she, too, had been spoiled by education and riches.

She was introduced presently to Kate’s fiancé, rather a matured man, whose name she did not catch. He had a florid handsome face, and his manner was intended to be suave and elegant, but was neither. Ina did not care for his keen-eyed appraisement of her person.

His companion, a dapper young man, blond, with curling mustache and large, languid, blue eyes, was Mr. Sewell McAdam. He wore gloves and carried a cane. It was plain that Ina was being presented to him, and that the occasion afforded him a gratification he did not intend to betray. Ina’s quick ear did not catch any words of pleasure at the meeting.

Gradually the crowd dispersed with groups and couples going toward their conveyances, and others walking down the street. Mr. McAdam quite appropriated Ina, but it pleased her to see that Marvie stayed close beside her.

“I’m having dinner with you,” announced her escort. “You can ride home with me. I’ve a fast little high-stepper.”

“Thank you, Mr. McAdam,” replied Ina, sweetly, “but I’m afraid of fast horses. I’ll ride home with my folks.”

The young gentleman appeared surprised and then annoyed. Ina bowed and passed on with Marvie, who was certainly squeezing her hand. They both climbed to the front seat, where Dall was already perched, while Mr. Blaine untied the horses at the hitching rail. Upon turning, with the reins in his hands, he espied Ina.

“Didn’t Sewell ask you to ride home with him?” he queried.

“Yes,” replied Ina, smiling.

“What’re you doin’ in here, then?” he demanded.

“Well, Dad, I’d rather ride home with Marvie and Dall,” returned Ina.

The presence of others, no doubt, restrained her father from a sharp retort. Ina saw the jerk of his frame and she heard him mutter as he climbed to the seat. Ina divined there was more here than just casual suggestion of the moment. It made her thoughtful all the way home, gravely anxious to reserve judgments.

* * * *

Ina’s first Sunday dinner at home was saved from being boresome, even irritating, by Marvie and Dall. These youngsters were wise enough to grasp the opportunity company at table afforded. Dall had a secret which she intuitively shared with Ina. Marvie was subtly antagonistic with all the ingenuity and devilishness of a keen boy. Some of his remarks were lost upon his father, whose appetite precluded observation, and his mother, buried in thought. They glanced off Mr. McAdam, too, but Kate’s glare was provocative of more, and Ina’s kicking him under the table made no impression.

“Mr. McAdam, you must have lots of sweethearts with that fast horse you drive,” remarked Marvie, naïvely. “Most girls wouldn’t mind anythin’ if they could ride behind a horse like yours.”

“Not so many, Marvie,” replied the young man, blandly.

“Can you drive him with one arm—so you’ll have the other one free?” inquired the boy.

“With my little finger.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Marvie.

The dinner was a bounteous repast, which it took time to consume. At its conclusion Marvie was dispatched on an errand, invented for the hour, and Dall was sent to her room. Kate paraded away with her fiancé, evidently to go out riding, and Mr. and Mrs. Blaine, without any excuses, left Ina alone to entertain their caller. The thing struck Ina as almost barefaced, and but for the pity she felt for her parents and older sister she would have resented it. How childish and silly of them! Ina viewed with augmenting dismay the gulf between her and them, something that could be bridged only by her understanding. Then she addressed herself to the task of entertaining this most eligible young man. Ina commenced amiably enough, but did not progress in a way that she thought flattering to herself. Mr. McAdam first interrupted her to say they would go out for a drive; then when it transpired that she was of different mind he stated he always took a lady out riding on Sunday afternoons.

“That’s very nice of you,” responded Ina. “It’s still early in the afternoon. I’ll excuse you.”

He stared at Ina as if she were a new species, and when finally it dawned upon him that she actually would not go and was sweetly advising him to hunt up another girl, he betrayed in sulky resentment not only his egotism, but a manifest disillusion. The moment ended Ina’s tolerance and desire to do her duty to her father’s friends.

“I wanted to drive you over to Lakeville. Told some friends I’d fetch you. Well, next Sunday we’ll go,” he said, his petulance easing out to words of finality. It did not occur to him that Ina might again refuse.

After conversation had been renewed he began to question Ina about her college life and her relatives in Kansas. Ina replied fluently, for to her it was a pleasant subject; but very quickly she grasped that Mr. McAdam was not interested in anything concerning it except the men she had known. He was not adroit in concealing his jealous curiosity. Ina would have had more respect for him if he had deliberately asked her if she was engaged or had a sweetheart, or if she flirted promiscuously or at all. Promptly then she cut her discourse on college and Kansas, and led him to talk of himself. He required no urging. Suggestion was not imperative. All she needed to do was listen.

Sewell McAdam was a salesman. He sold commodities for money. Stores and people, no credit and quick turnovers of goods, long hours and small wages for employees—of these things he was glibly full. His little leisure he devoted to fast horses, adornment of person, pinochle, and pretty girls. Never had Ina felt so immensely flattered! He had no love for open country. Never had sat round a camp fire in his life! Hunting was too hard work and fishing a dirty waste of time. The draining of Tule Lake was a master stroke of business minds, of whom his father claimed to be one. He had never seen a wild horse or the purple-gray of the sage hills.

“Let’s go out for a little walk in the yard,” suggested Ina, rising. So she got him outdoors where there was air, but no escape. They inspected the corrals, sheds, barns, horses, with all of which Mr. McAdam found fault. He hated farm life anyway.

“You’ll like living in Klamath Falls,” he said, as if inspired.

“Indeed!” murmured Ina, stifling a laugh. If only Marvie would appear to the rescue! But certain it was that this favored suitor from the city had been accorded a fair field.

Then to Ina’s dismay the voluble young gentleman spied the grove of large trees far back of the house and desired to go thither. In truth, he was sentimental. Ina suffered herself to be led there. It seemed a sacrilege—something she did not quite understand. But the sympathy and humor with which she had accepted her father’s company vanished under the old double pine tree. Here Sewell McAdam possessed himself of her hand, unobtrusively he made it appear on two occasions. On the third, however, Ina had to pull to release it.

“Mr. McAdam, I fear I do understand you,” she said. “But you don’t understand me. I’m not in the habit of letting young men hold my hand.”

“Aw, be sociable, Ina. What’s a little hand holding?” he urged.

“It doesn’t amount to much, but I haven’t any desire for it,” she said, edging away.

“Say, I may strike you as pretty thick, but I’m not that big a fool,” he returned, frowning.

“As what?” queried Ina.

“Why—to believe you’re that uppish, when you’ve been away for years at school among a lot of Tom, Dick and Harrys. Besides, it’s a bad start for us if you’re to be—if we’re—if things are—”

Ina’s grave questioning gaze brought him to a floundering halt.

“Mr. McAdam, you are laboring under some mistake,” said Ina. “We—if you mean you and I—have not made any kind of a start. Come, let us return to the house.”

He accompanied her sulkily. Ina was quick to give him an opportunity to say good-by and make his departure. But he carried his petulence even into the presence of her father and mother, now sitting on the porch with other visitors, of whom Mr. Setter was one. Ina was relieved to join them. A few minutes later Kate and her escort drove into the yard. Presently Ina excused herself and went to her room.

An hour’s pondering alleviated her anger and disgust, but she did not intend to endure any more afternoons like this one. She did not feel sure of her father’s motive, but his action had been rather pointed. Ina had dim recollections of the trials of country girls whose fathers’ wishes were the law. She saw that the only course for her was to assert herself at once. Accordingly, when the company had departed and she was again in the presence of the family she addressed her father.

“Dad, why did you all leave me alone with that Mr. McAdam?”

“Wha-at!” ejaculated Mr. Blaine, and when she repeated her query he said: “Reckon Sewell was callin’ on you.”

“But I did not know him; I didn’t ask him.”

“That makes no difference. I asked him.”

Ina saw him then, somehow transformed from the loving though hard parent she had cherished in memory. He had been as powerfully affected by the touch of money and his false position as had her mother, only in a vastly different way.

“Why did you?” went on Ina, aware that her composure and spirit were inimical to her father’s temper.

“Sewell’s a fine young chap. His father’s my friend, an’ maybe partner. Reckon I thought you an’ Sewell would take a shine to each other.”

“Thank you. That explains Mr. McAdam. He seemed pretty sure that I’d take a shine to him, as you call it.”

At this juncture Marvie exploded into a rapturous: “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Shet up, an’ leave the table,” ordered Mr. Blaine. Then turning to Ina with face somewhat reddened, he continued: “Ina, I ain’t denyin’ I told Sewell you’d sure like him.”

“I’m sorry, for I don’t.”

“Wal, that’s too bad, but I reckon you will when you get acquainted.”

“It’s quite improbable, Father,” returned Ina, unconscious that for the first time she omitted the familiar dad.

“Sewell’s father an’ me are goin’ into a big business deal,” said Mr. Blaine, laboriously breathing, and his huge hands held up knife and fork. “They’re mighty proud folks. If you snubbed Sewell it’d hurt my stand with them.”

“I’ll not snub him or any of your friends or partners,” replied Ina. “I’ll be respectful and courteous, as one of your family, when they call here. But I do not want to be left alone again with Mr. Sewell McAdam or any other man. And I won’t be, either.”

“Paw, Ina is still sweet on Ben Ide,” interrupted Kate, spitefully.

All the blood in Ina’s heart seemed to burn in her face. The name of Ben Ide, spoken aloud, had inexplicable power to move her. This was so thought-provoking that it rendered her mute.

“You ought to be grateful for the attentions of Sewell McAdam,” declared Kate, with a flare in her eyes.

“Listen, Kate, I’m not so susceptible as you are to the blarney of city men,” returned Ina, goaded beyond restraint. “They might be actuated by the change in our fortunes.”

This precipitated the imminence of a family quarrel, which was checked by Mrs. Blaine’s bursting into tears and Marvie’s yelling derisively at Kate from the hall. Mr. Blaine stamped after him. Kate, white-faced and shaken, sat there in silence. Ina endeavored to soothe her mother; and presently, when Mr. Blaine returned with fire in his eye muttering, “That damn youngster’s goin’ to be another Ben Ide!” they all resumed their supper, jointly ashamed of the upset.

That night Ina sat alone in her dark room beside the open window. Spring frogs were piping plaintively. How the sweet notes made Ina shiver! They too flooded her mind with memories of the home she had cherished in her heart, of childhood and youth. Of Ben Ide! She could make out the dim high black hills beyond which lay Forlorn River. Dropping her head on the window sill, she wept.