Vandemark's Folly Part 38

She ran up-stairs, and down again in a few seconds, with the cases, and wearing her bonnet and cloak. I could hear the doctor running his buggy out of the shed, and speaking to his horses. She set the cases down on the sidewalk, came up to me, put her hand on my arm and spoke.

"Jake," said she, "are you and Rowena married?"

"Us married!" I exclaimed. "Why, no!"

"This is bad business," said she. "I am surprised, and there's no woman out there with the poor little thing?"

"No," I said; "as soon as I could I started for the doctor because I thought he was needed first. But she needs a woman--a woman that won't look down on her, I wish--I wish I knew where there was one!"

"Jake," said she, "you've done the fair thing by me, and I'll stand by you, and by her. I'll go to her in her trouble. I'll go now with the doctor. And when I do the fair thing, see that you do the same. I'm not the one to throw the first stone, and I won't. I'm going with you, Doctor."

"What for?" said he.

"Just for the ride," she said. "I'll tell you more as we go."

They outstripped me on the return trip, for my horse was winded, and I felt that there was no place for me in what was going on at the farm, though what that must be was very dim in my mind.

I let my horse walk. The fire was farther off, now; but the sky, now flecked with drifting clouds, was red with its light, and the sight was one which I shall never see again: which I suppose n.o.body will ever see again; for I do not believe there will ever be seen such an expanse of gra.s.s as that of Iowa at that time. I have seen prairie fires in Montana and Western Canada; but they do not compare to the prairie fires of old Iowa. None of these countries bears such a coating of gra.s.s as came up from the black soil of Iowa; for their climate is drier. I can see that sight as if it were before my eyes now. The roaring came no longer to my ears as I rode on through the night, except faintly when the breeze, which had died down, sprang up as the fire reached some swale covered with its ten-foot high saw-gra.s.s. Then, I could see from the top of some rising ground the flames leap up, reach over, catch in front of the line, kindle a new fire, and again be overleaped by a new tongue of fire, so that the whole line became a belt of flames, and appeared to be rolling along in a huge billow of fire, three or four rods across, and miles in length.

The advance was not in a straight line. In some places for one reason or another, the thickness or thinness of the gra.s.s, the slope of the land, or the varying strength of the wind, the fire gained or lost ground. In some places great patches of land were cut off as islands by the joining of advanced columns ahead of them, and lay burning in triangles and circles and hollow squares of fire, like bodies of soldiers falling behind and formed to defend themselves against pursuers. All this unevenness of line, with the varying surface of the lovely Iowa prairie, threw the fire into separate lines and columns and detachments more and more like burning armies as they receded from view.

Sometimes a whole mile or so of the line disappeared as the fire burned down into lower ground; and then with a swirl of flame and smoke, the smoke luminous in the glare, it moved magnificently up into sight, rolling like a breaker of fire bursting on a reef of land, buried the hillside in flame, and then whirled on over the top, its streamers flapping against the horizon, snapping off shreds of flame into the air, as triumphantly as a human army taking an enemy fort. Never again, never again! We went through some hards.h.i.+ps, we suffered some ills to be pioneers in Iowa; but I would rather have my grandsons see what I saw and feel what I felt in the conquest of these prairies, than to get up by their radiators, step into their baths, whirl themselves away in their cars, and go to universities. I am glad I had my share in those old, sweet, grand, beautiful things--the things which never can be again.

An old man looks back on things pa.s.sed through as sufferings, and feels a thrill when he identifies them as among the splendors of life. Can anything more clearly prove the vanity of human experiences? But look at the wonders which have come out of those days. My youth has already pa.s.sed into a period as legendary as the days when King Alfred hid in the swamp and was reproved by the peasant's wife for burning the cakes.

I have lived on my Iowa farm from times of bleak wastes, robber bands, and savage primitiveness, to this day, when my state is almost as completely developed as Holland. If I have a pride in it, if I look back to those days as worthy of record, remember that I have some excuse.

There will be no other generation of human beings with a life so rich in change and growth. And there never was such a thing in all the history of the world before.

I knew then, dimly, that what I saw was magnificent; but I was more pleased with the safety of my farmstead and my stacks than with the grim glory of the scene; and even as to my own good fortune in coming through undamaged, I was less concerned than with the tragedy being enacted in my house. I could not see into the future for Rowena, but I felt that it would be terrible. The words "lost," "ruined," "outcast," which were always applied to such as she had become, ran through my mind all the time; and yet, she seemed a better girl when I talked with her than when she was running over the prairie like a plover following old Tom and the little c.l.i.ttering wagon. Now she seemed to have grown, to have taken on a sort of greatness, something which commanded my respect, and almost my awe.

It was the sacredness of martyrdom. I know this now: but then I seemed to feel that I was disgracing myself for not loathing her as something unclean.

"It's a boy!" said Doctor Bliven, as I came to the house. "The mother ain't in very good shape. Seems exhausted--exhausted. She'll pull through, though--she'll pull through; but the baby is fat and l.u.s.ty.

Strange, how the mother will give everything to the offspring, and bring it forth fat when she's as thin as a rail--thin as a rail. Mystery of nature, you know--perpetuation of the race. Instinct, you know, instinct. This girl, now--had an outfit of baby clothes in that bundle of hers--instinct--instinct. My wife's going to stay a day or so. I'll take her back next time I come out."

"You must 'tend to her, Doc," said I. "I'll guarantee you your pay."

"Very well, Jake. Of course you would--of course, of course," said he.

"But between you and me there wouldn't be any trouble about pay. Old friends, you know; old friends. Favors in the past. You've done things for me--my wife, too. Fellow travelers, you know. Never call on us for anything and be refused. Be out to-morrow. Ought to have a woman here when I go. Probably be milk for the child when it needs it; but needs woman. Can get you a mover's wife's sister--widow--experienced with her own. Want her? Bring her out for you--bring her out to-morrow. Eh?"

I told him to bring the widow out, and was greatly relieved. I went to Magnus's cabin that night to sleep, leaving Mrs. Bliven with Rowena. I hoped I might not have to see Rowena before she went away; for the very thought of seeing the girl with the child embarra.s.sed me; but on the third day the widow--they afterward moved on to the Fort Dodge country--came to me, and standing afar off as if I was infected with something malignant, told me that Mrs. Vandemark wanted to see me.

"She ain't Mrs. Vandemark," I corrected. "Her name is Rowena Fewkes."

"I make it a habit," said the widow, whose name was Mrs. Williams, "to speak in the present tense."

Whatever she may have meant was a problem to me; but I went in. Rowena lay in my bed, and beside her was a little bundle wrapped in a blanket made of one of my flannel sheets. The women were making free of my property as a matter of course.

"What are you goin' to do with me, Jake?" she asked again, looking up at me pleadingly.

"I'm goin' to keep you here till you're able to do for yourself," I said. "Time enough to think of that after a while."

She took my hand and pressed it, and turned her face to the pillow.

Pretty soon she turned the blanket back, and there lay the baby, red and ugly and wrinkled.

"Ain't he purty?" said she, her face glowing with love. "Oh, Jake, I thank G.o.d I didn't find the pond before you found me. I didn't know very well what I was doin'. I'll have something to love an' work fur, now. I wonder if they'll let me be a good womern. I will be, in spite of h.e.l.l an' high water--f'r his sake, Jake."

4

As I lay in Magnus's bed that night, I could see no way out for her. She could get work, I knew, for there was always work for a woman in our pioneer houses. The hired girl who went from place to place could find employment most of the time; but the baby would be an inc.u.mbrance. It would be a thing that the eye of censure could not ignore, like the scarlet "A" on the breast of the girl in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story. I could not foresee how the thing would work out, and lay awake pondering on it until after midnight, and I had hardly fallen asleep, it seemed to me, when the door was opened, and in came Magnus. He had finished his job and come back.

"You hare, Yake?" he said, in his quiet and unmoved way. "I'm glad. Your house bane burn up in fire?"

I told him the startling news, and as the story of poor Rowena slowly made its way into his mind, I was startled and astonished at its effect on him; for he has always been to me a man who would be calm in a tornado, and who would meet s.h.i.+pwreck or earthquake without a tremor. I have seen him standing in his place in the ranks with his comrades falling all about loading and firing his musket, with no more change in his expression than a cold light of battle in his mild b.u.t.termilk eyes.

I have seen him wipe from his face the blood of a fellow-soldier spattered on him by a fragment of sh.e.l.l, as if it had been a splash of water from a puddle. But now, he trembled. He turned pale. He raged up and down the little room with his hands doubled into fists and beating the air. He bit down upon his Norwegian words with clenched teeth. I was afraid to talk to him at last. Finally, he turned to me and said:

"Ay know de man! So it vas in de ol' country! Rich fallar bane t'inking poor girl notting but like fresh fruit for him to eat; a cup of vine for him to drink; an' he drink it! He eat de fruit. But dis bane different country. Ay keel dis d.a.m.ned Gowdy! You hare, Yake? Ay keel him!"

Of course I told him that this would never do, and talked the way we all do when it is our duty to keep a friend from ruining himself. He sat down while I was talking, and as far as I could see heard never a word of what I said. Finally I talked myself out, and still he sat there as silent as a statue.

"Ay--tank--Ay--take--a--valk," he said at last, in the jerky way of the Norwegian; and he went out into the night.

I lay back expecting that he would come in pretty soon, when I had more of which I had thought to talk to him about; but I went to sleep, and having been a good deal broken of my rest, I slept late. He was still absent when I woke up. When I got to my place, the widow told me that he had been there and had a long talk with Rowena, and had hitched up his team and driven away.

Rowena was asleep when I looked in, and I went out to plow. If Magnus had gone to kill Buck Gowdy, there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

As a matter of fact, I approved of his impulse. I had felt it myself, though not with any such wrathful bitterness. I had known for a long time that Magnus had a tenderness toward Rowena; but he was such a gentle fellow, and seemed to be so slow in approaching her, with his fooling with Surajah's inventions and the like, that I set down his feeling as a sort of sheepish drawing toward her which never would amount to anything. But now I saw that his rage against Gowdy was of the kind that overpowered him, stolid as he had always seemed. It rose above mine in proportion to the pa.s.sion he must have felt for her, when she was a girl that a man could take for a wife. I pitied him; and I did not envy Buck Gowdy, if it chanced that they should come together while Magnus's white-hot anger was burning; but I rather hoped they would meet. I did not believe that in any just court Magnus would be punished if he supplied the lack in the law.

When I turned out at noon, I saw Magnus's team, and a horse hitched to a buggy tied to my corn-crib; and when I went into the house, I half expected to find Jim Boyd, the sheriff, there to arrest Magnus Thorkelson for murder, at the bedside of Magnus's lady-love. I could imagine how N. V. Creede, whom I had already resolved I would retain to defend Magnus, would thrill the jury In his closing speech for the prisoner as the bar.

What I found was Elder Thornd.y.k.e and grandma and the widow, all standing by Rowena's bed. The widow was holding the baby in her arms, but as I came in she laid it in a chair and covered it up, as much as to indicate that on this occasion the less seen of the infant the better. Magnus was holding Rowena's hand, and the elder was standing on the other side of the bed holding a book. Grandma Thornd.y.k.e stood at the bed's foot looking severely at a _Hostetter's Almanac_ I had hanging on the head-board. The widow was twittering around from place to place. When I came in, Magnus motioned me to stand beside him, and as I took my place handed me a gold ring. Rowena looked up at me piteously, as if to ask forgiveness. Sometime during the ceremony we had the usual hitch over the ring, for I had put it in my trousers pocket and had to find it so that Magnus could put it on Rowena's finger. I had never seen a marriage ceremony, and was at my wit's end to know what we were doing, thinking sometimes that it was a wedding, and sometimes that it might be something like extreme unction; when at last the elder said, "I p.r.o.nounce you man and wife!"

CHAPTER XIX

GOWDY ACKNOWLEDGES HIS SON

Now I leave it to the reader--if I ever have one besides my granddaughter Gertrude--whether in this case of the trouble of Rowena Fewkes and her marriage to Magnus Thorkelson, I did anything by which I ought to have forfeited the esteem of my neighbors, of the Reverend and Mrs. Thornd.y.k.e, or of Virginia Royall. I never in all my life acted in a manner which was more in accordance to the dictates of my conscience.

You have seen how badly I behaved, or tended to behave in the past, and lost no friends by it. In a long life of dealing in various kinds of property, including horse-trading, very few people have ever got the best of me, and everybody knows that this is less a boast than a confession; and yet, this one good act of standing by this poor girl in her dreadful plight degraded me more in the minds of the community than all the spavins, thorough-pins, poll-evils and the like I ever concealed or glossed over. We are all schoolboys who usually suffer our whippings for things that should be overlooked; and the fact that we get off scot free when we should have our jackets tanned does not seem to make the injustice any easier to bear.

d.i.c.k McGill, the editor of the scurrilous Monterey _Journal_ was, as usual, the chief imp of this as of any other deviltry his sensational paper could take a part in. Of course, he would be on Buck Gowdy's side; for what rights had such people as Magnus and Rowena and I?

"A wedding took place out on the wild sh.o.r.es of h.e.l.l Slew last week,"

said this paper. "It was not a case, exactly, of the funeral baked meats coldly furnis.h.i.+ng forth the marriage supper; but the economy was quite as striking. The celebration of the arrival of the heir of the Manor (though let us hope not of the manner) was merged in the wedding festivities. We make our usual announcements: Married at the residence of J.T. Vandemark, Miss Rowena Fewkes to Mr. Magnus Thorkelson. It's a boy, standard weight. The ceremonies were presided over by Doctor Bliven, our genial disciple of Esculapias, and by Elder Thornd.y.k.e, each in his respective sphere of action. Great harmony marked the carrying out of these usually separate functions. The amalgamation of peoples goes on apace. Here we have Yankee, Scandinavian and Dutch so intertwined that it will take no common 'glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel' to separate the sheep from the goats in the sequel.

_Nuff ced_."

He little knew the sequel!