A SLEEPLESS NIGHT
It was close upon the beginning of another day before Jessie and I got to bed, but, late as it was, I could not sleep.
Our pressing financial problem was so constantly in my thoughts that now, in my weariness, I found myself unable to dismiss it. We had collected some money, but not enough—not enough! I turned and tossed restlessly. Now that the time for proving up was so close at hand an increasing terror of failure grew upon me. It did not seem to me that I should be able to endure it if we were obliged to give up our home. Forty dollars! In the stillness of the night that sum, as I reflected upon it, dwindled into insignificance. I reviewed all of our monetary transactions that I could think of, and, adding up the sum total, half convinced myself that we must have made a mistake in the counting that evening.
“I’m quite sure that there’s more than forty dollars,” I told myself, turning over my hot pillow in search of a cooler side, and giving it a vigorous shake. “I’m quite sure! There’s the money for Mr. Horton’s mending, that was forty cents; and Miss Jones’s wrapper was two dollars; and that setting of eggs that I sold to Jennie Speers—I don’t remember whether they were two dollars or only fifty cents. Oh, dear! And there was Cleo’s calf; that was—I don’t remember how much it was!”
The longer I remembered and added up, and remembered and subtracted, the less I really knew. By the time that my fifth reckoning had reduced our hoard to twenty-seven dollars I would gladly have gotten up and counted the money again, but Jessie had it in charge and I did not know where she kept it. It was small consolation in the desperate state of uncertainty into which I had worked myself to reflect that I had only myself to blame for this. Being a somewhat imaginative young person, I had reasoned that if burglars were to break into the house and demand to know the whereabouts of our hidden wealth it might be possible for Jessie, who knew, to escape, taking her knowledge with her, while I, who did not know, might safely stand by that declaration. It was rather a far-fetched theory, but Jessie had willingly subscribed to it. If not actually apprehensive of robbery, she was, perhaps, more inclined to trust to her own quiet temper, in a case of emergency, than to my warmer one. At the same time she understood very well that I had an unusual talent for silence. It was this talent that induced me to stay my hand late that night just as I was on the point of rousing Jessie and asking her where she had put the money. She was sleeping soundly and she was very tired.
“I’ll count it all over the first thing in the morning,” I thought; and with the resolution, dropped off to sleep.
It was very late when I awoke. Ralph was still sleeping, but Jessie had risen, and was moving quietly about the house. Above the slight noise that she made I heard distinctly the pu-r—rr of falling water, and knew that it was raining heavily. With the knowledge, the recollection that Joe had gone came back to me with an unusual sense of aggravation. Joe had always done the milking, and it had not rained since he left. Dressing noiselessly, in order not to disturb Ralph, I went out into the kitchen. Jessie looked up as I entered. “I’ll help you milk this morning, Leslie,” she said. “It’s too bad for you to have to putter around in the rain while I’m dry in the house.”
“There’s no use in our both getting wet,” I returned, ungraciously. “You’d much better finish getting breakfast and keep watch of Ralph. If he were to waken and find us both gone he’d probably start out a relief expedition of one in any direction that took his fancy. He’d be glad of the chance to get out in the rain.”
“Who would have thought of its raining so soon when we came home last night. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.”
“There’s none in sight now; we’re inside of one so thick that we can’t see out. I dare say we’ll encounter more than one rain-storm ‘while the days are going by’; but it would be handy if Joe were here this morning.”
“Yes, indeed! I only hope Joe’s conscience acquits him, wherever he is.”
“Oh, I am sure it does—if he has a conscience—for I suppose that’s what you would call his feeling obliged to worry about us,” I said, in quick defence of the absent friend whose actions I might secretly question, but of whom I could not bear that another should speak slightingly.
I put on my old felt hat and took up the milk-pail. Jessie was busy over something that she was cooking in a skillet on the stove, but she glanced up as I opened the door, and a dash of rain came swirling in.
“Why, Leslie Gordon! Are you going out in this storm dressed like that? Here, put on my mackintosh.”
I had forgotten all about wraps, but a shawl or cape would have been better than the long mackintosh that Jessie insisted upon buttoning me into. It was too long; the skirts nearly tripped me up as I started to run down the path to the corral, and when I held it up it was little protection.
The corral where the cows were usually penned over-night was behind the barn. As I came in sight of it a feeling of almost despair swept over me. The corral bars were down, and the cows were gone! I hung the milk-pail bottom-side up on one of the bar posts. The raindrops played a lively tattoo on its resounding sides, while I dropped the mackintosh skirt, regardless of its trailing length, and stood still, trying to recollect that I had put up the bars after we had finished milking on the previous evening. Search my memory as I might, however, I could not find that I had taken this simple but necessary precaution, and, if I had forgotten it, it was useless to suppose that Jessie had not.
“It’s just my negligence!” I remarked, scornfully, to my drenched surroundings; “just my negligence, and now I shall have to hunt for those cows, and in this rain that shuts everything out it will be like looking for a needle in a haymow.”
I took down the pail, seeming to take down an entire chorus of singing water witches with it, and retraced my steps to the house. Even this simple act was performed with some difficulty, for again I stepped on the mackintosh and nearly fell.
“You’ve been very quick with the milking, and breakfast’s all ready,” Jessie remarked, cheerfully, as I entered, and then, catching sight of the empty pail, she exclaimed, “Why, what’s the matter?”
When I told her, she said, reproachfully, “Leslie, of course I supposed that you would put up the bars after we had finished milking last night!”
I am afraid that I was cross as well as tired: “Why, ‘of course,’ Jessie? Why is it, can you tell me, that there is always some one member of a family who is supposed, quite as a matter of course, to make good the short-comings and long-goings of all the others? To straighten out the domestic tangles, to remember, always remember, what the others forget; to be good-tempered when others are ill-tempered; to—”
Jessie laid a brown little hand on my shoulder, checking the torrent of my eloquence; she laid her cheek against my own for a passing instant.
“That’s all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are merely forms, moving forms, with impulses.”
I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know it.
“I suppose, then,” I returned, with affected resentment, “that I am a form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast.”
“Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too,” proclaimed a shrill, familiar voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table.
“Eat your breakfast, Leslie,” said Jessie; “I’ll dress Ralph. After breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?” She spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to know the cattle trails as I know them.
“No,” I said; “I’ll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker than you could.”
“They may not have gone far.” Jessie advanced this proposition hopefully.
“Far enough, I’ll warrant. I believe there’s nothing that a cow likes so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she thinks some one is hunting for her.”
“You can take one of the horses—” Jessie began, and, in the irritated state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto that proposition.
“Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once.”
My sister had the grace to blush slightly, which consoled me a good deal. I hoped that, either as a soul or a form with impulses, she remembered that father or Joe had never made a practice of letting both horses out at once. When one was in the barn, his mate in the pasture could be easily caught. Otherwise, the catching was a work of labor and of pain. Once, indeed, when both had been inadvertently turned out together, father had been obliged to hire a cowboy to come with his lariat and rope Jim, the principal offender. When Jim, with the compelling noose about his neck, had been led ignominiously back to the stable, father had told us never to let them out together again, a warning that Jessie evidently recalled now for the first time.
“Dear me, Leslie! I’m dreadfully sorry!” she exclaimed, lifting Ralph into his high chair; “I just meant to save a little work, and I guess I’ve brought on no end of it!”
“Perhaps not; we’ll leave the barn door open. It’s so cold that they may go in of their own accord after a while.” And that was what they did do, along in the afternoon, when it was quite too late for them to be of any service that day.
My hasty breakfast finished, I got up from the table. “I am going right away, Jessie; it will never do to let the cows lie out all day.”
“No,” Jessie assented. She was waiting on Ralph. I had thrown the mackintosh over a chair near the stove. I had had enough of that, but I must wear something. Picking up the big felt hat, I went into the next room and looked into a closet where a number of garments were hanging. Back in the corner, partially hidden under some other clothing, I caught a glimpse of a worn gray coat—the coat that father had loaned Joe on that fatal morning months ago. The rain dashed fiercely against the window panes as it had on that morning, too, and the sad, dull day seemed to grow sadder and grayer. With a sudden, homesick longing for father’s love and sympathy, I took down the coat. Tears sprang to my eyes at sight of the big, aggressive patch on the left sleeve. Father had praised me for that bit of clumsy workmanship at which Jessie had laughed. I resolved to wear the coat. “I shall feel as if father were with me,” I thought, as I slipped it on. Going out at the front door I did not again encounter Jessie, but as I passed the kitchen windows I saw her glance up and look at me with a startled air.
It was still raining heavily and I started out on a fast walk. Crossing the foot-bridge below the house I ascended the hill on the other side. The cattle always crossed the river without the aid of the foot-bridge, however, and took this route to the upper range, where they were pretty sure to be now. I hoped that the pursuit would not lead me far among the hills. While thus in the open the situation was not unpleasant; I rather enjoyed the feeling of the rain drops in my face. Just as I gained the crest of the hill beyond the river I heard some one shouting, and, looking back, saw Jessie. She was out in the yard in the rain calling and waving the apron that she had snatched off for the purpose. With the noise of the rain and the rushing river it was impossible to make out what she was saying. I was sure, though, that she merely wished to remonstrate with me for not wearing the mackintosh. I waved my hand to let her know that I saw her, and then hurried on down the farther slope of the hill. I walked fast for a long distance without coming upon any trace of the cattle, and then I fell gradually into the slower pace that is meant for staying. As I did so my thoughts again reverted to the money-counting problem that had vexed me over night. In the re-assuring light of day it did not seem so entirely probable that Jessie had been so mistaken in her count, and it did not so much matter that I had forgotten after all to ask her where the money was kept.