The Wrong Woman

by Charles D. Stewart

"There's number one," Steve remarked casually

They had ascended, almost imperceptibly, one of those slow rises or folds in the prairie from which more distant objects, if there are any, come into view. Janet had just been taking her bearings; ahead of them there had now come to sight the long file of trees which marked the course of Comanche Creek; looking back she could still see the shack, quite plainly, on its knoll. As he spoke, and pointed, her eyes followed the new direction, off to the left. A sheep had fallen out of the flock; she was now standing some distance behind. From the way she nosed in the grass without advancing, it was evident what had taken place.

"Well, good-bye," said Janet. Then, feeling suddenly that these words had too serious a sound, she added, "But I suppose I will catch up with you before long."

"Shall I go over with you?"

"Oh, no," she answered, and hurried away.

"Don't forget what I said about the creek," he called out after her.

As she looked back he pointed first at the shack and then at the creek, bringing his arm around in a semicircle as if it were a sort of dial-hand to the prairie. "Don't get lost," he added.

When she nodded to show that she understood, he strode on after the sheep. They had been gaining ground steadily and had got far ahead.

Janet, reaching the scene of the nativity, became very much interested. The lamb was just beginning to look up and take notice; she stooped over him in rapt contemplation. His little merino back was wrinkled as fine as a frown. His little hoofs were already beginning to feel the ground under them; he was going to rise! Then ensued a lamb's usual drunken contest with the laws of gravity. While he stepped on air and tried to get the hang of things, Janet followed his fortunes with bated breath. When he had got his four legs firmly planted, the first thing he did was to shake himself; and he did it with such vigor that he upset himself. This was a surprise to Janet if not to the lamb; he had shaken himself off his feet; everything had to be done over again. He seemed a little stultified by this turn of affairs; but though he was down the fall had not knocked any of the ambition out of him; he immediately went at it again. This time he conquered and stood right up to the bar of life, much to Janet's relief.

Having filled himself and spent a moment looking at nothing in particular, he decided that the best thing to do was to veer around and have some more; in taking this step, however, there was some sort of error in the proceedings and he went down forward on his knees. A moment later the hind legs stumbled and fell, and he was all down; now he decided to take a rest. As the mother nosed him over and showed every sign of affection, Janet began to see that her services were not needed; her presence was of no consequence whatever. There was nothing for her to do but to stroke his back and pat him on the head; having done which she rose and again went forward upon her charitable mission.

The flock by this time had eaten its way into the distance. It was not so far away, however, but that she could soon have overtaken it. She walked along at a moderate pace, looking alternately to right and left for such as might fall under her care.

She had not gone far when she sighted another. As this one had dropped out of the right wing of the army ahead, he was off to one side of her present course. By the time she arrived he had already succeeded in standing up; he even took a distinct step; then he shook himself like a dog just out of water. Like the other lamb, he shook himself down; he hit the ground with rather more decisive a drop. When he had again mastered the difficulties, and achieved his reward, Janet sat down near by and waited to see whether the two would become acquainted. This again proved to be a happy union.

Janet felt a little disappointed. She had expected to be of some use. Now that she had proved to be a mere looker-on she began to take thought about the lamb's future. There came to her again those words—"The coyotes would get them." She rose at once. A man would carry them back to the corral; why not she? She took the lamb in her arms intending to go off a distance and see whether the mother would follow. The experiment proved unnecessary, however; the ewe not only followed but kept close at her side. Accompanied thus by the mother she went back to the first halting-place where the other ewe joined them; thence she set a course straight for the shack, a lamb on each arm and a sheep at each side of her. Things went much easier than she had expected.

In this turn of affairs, she felt quite satisfied. Although it was the first time she had ever touched a lamb or had any experience with a sheep, the work seemed perfectly natural. Indeed, as she marched along between the two watchful ewes, and hugged to her breast the warm objects of their attention, it seemed to her—a very puzzling delusion—that she had done this same thing before; it was like a half-faded memory. Nor did it seem natural to think of Mr. Brown as a stranger; it seemed that she had known him a long time ago—always. Possibly this was because she felt so much at home in this sort of work. Then, too, we dream dreams, and they have a way of bringing themselves to pass in some shape or other.

Having reached the corral she managed to let down the bars without getting the infants mixed up—a matter which had given her much concern; and now that she had them safely inside she thought it advisable to wait a while and make sure that family relations were going to be permanent, after her interference. She rested herself by sitting on the top rail of the corral; meantime she took an interested survey of the stuffed clothes of Mr. Pete Harding under whose manly presentment the lambs enjoyed protection. Mr. Brown had made a very good imitation of a man by filling the herder's working-clothes with marsh grass; the figure had been made to stand up by means of a pole thrust through the fence, to the end of which Mr. Harding was suspended by the neck as if he had been hung in effigy. The man himself had not yet put in his appearance. Janet, as she thought of him, scanned the horizon for signs of his approach. There was no indication of his coming. But still the day was not half over; possibly, she told herself, he would arrive early in the afternoon. Having become satisfied that all was well, so far as the lambs were concerned, she put up the top bar and went forth again to her work.

By looking back occasionally and sighting her route by means of the shack and the storm-shed, the relative positions of which she had been careful to observe when she first went out, she held her course so well that when she next came in sight of the line of trees she was at the same point as before. Here she set straight out for the bend in the creek, which landmark was to guide her on the next stage of her quest. As before, she kept a sharp lookout for stranded sheep.

She had not gone a great distance when another case presented itself. This time it was twins. The pair were sleeping. The mother, having licked them nicely into shape, had lain down beside them; when Janet arrived she got up suddenly and stared at her in alarm. The twins had evidently been successful, so far, in all their undertakings, not the least of which is to take a rest. They were in very good condition to be carried. She took them up and arranged them comfortably, one on each arm, and soon they were on their way to safety, the anxious mother trotting first to one side of Janet and then to the other. These also were added to the ones in the corral.

Janet did not feel so tired but that she could have turned about at once; she would have done so had it not been that it was dinner-time and she was hungry. Mr. Brown had taken along with him an extra large lunch which he expected her to share with him somewhere along the shaded banks of the Comanche; the little plan passed momentarily through her mind as she raised the lid of the box and took out a pan of beans. There was also a piece of bread left; it tasted better than she would have expected cold hot-bread to do.

Luckily for the work she had taken upon herself, Steve Brown had planned a route for the day which any one could easily follow. He was going to graze the sheep along Comanche Creek, downstream, on the right-hand side; he would bring them back not very wide of the same course. This arrangement he had made entirely with a view to being quickly found in case help arrived; he had left a note behind giving instructions. As this was all very plain sailing, Janet saw that she would be quite free to come and go, and she had been quick to turn this arrangement to the lambs' advantage. When she had satisfied the worst of her hunger she started out again. The consciousness that she could find him whenever she wished, and was, virtually, in touch with him all the time, made her task entirely enjoyable.

This time she reached the creek and gave herself over to its guidance. Comanche Creek, like other prairie streams, had its line of trees which very plainly belonged to it and not to the prairie. This impression of foreignness to the region was emphasized by their extending in unbroken procession from horizon to horizon, as if they were merely crossing the plains. While the stream hurried on to its congregation of waters, the trees seemed bound for some distant forest. Quite strictly they kept to the course; none of them, beech, hickory, live-oak, nor pecan, encroached beyond the right of way nor seemed ever to have been forgetful that these were the Plains. It was very much as if they recognized that trees ought not to grow here. As, indeed, they ought not. The prairie is itself as much as is the ocean or forest, and it has no room to spare. Space, like wood and water, must have its own exclusive regions wherein to exercise its larger and deeper spell. These were the earthly fastnesses of space; and so preëmpted. Many grapevines looped along the route, some of them of ancient growth, hanging like big ropes from tree to tree; these had the appearance of keeping a still closer regard to the direction of the stream itself, their more sinuous wood flowing along in a like spirit and keeping the waters company. Nowhere so artfully, perhaps, as in a prairie stream, are eye and ear addressed by the manifold activities of wood and water. To come across it in the course of a long monotonous journey is as sudden as falling in love—and very much like it.

Comanche Creek, having such advantages of contrast and sharp comparison, was well calculated to strike the mind with the whole charm of stream and forest; and so it worked upon Janet. To her right was the prairie as monotonous as duty; to her left the creek with its mirrored vistas, its rippling bends, its comfortable resting-places where sun and shade played together. Inviting as it all was, however, she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only occasionally did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this more restful scene. She kept on looking for lambs. But after a while she awoke to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she ought to be keeping out on the prairie; instead of using it as a guide in her work she was making a companion of it. She turned at once and marched out to the scene of duty.

As she got out nearer to the centre of her field of operations,—twelve hundred sheep cut a pretty wide swath,—she thought she heard the cry of a lamb. She stopped and listened. All was silence. It might have been imagination, assisted, possibly, by some rumor of the distant flock; but yet the still small voice had seemed to come from somewhere near at hand. She went forward, listening intently. Presently she heard it again; then she saw him. He was so close that she could see his little red tongue as he opened his mouth and called to her.

Poor little lamb! There was not a sheep in sight. There was just him and the prairie. He was barely managing to stand up; she could easily see that he was on his last legs as well as his first ones. As she went to him he took a step or two as if to meet her, but his legs lacked stiffening and he fell on his nose. She ran and picked him up. As she took him in her arms he opened his mouth again and called upon his mother.

Which way to take him in search of milk became now a pressing problem. She thought she felt him shiver. If he was to be saved, it would not do for him to starve much longer; nature demands that if a lamb is to live he must have his first meal without delay. She paused to decide the matter, holding his passive little hoofs in her hand. To keep right on after the flock might prove the quickest way; but again it might not; it would be taking a chance. Back at the corral, far though it was, the services of a mother were certain. The surest way seemed the best to her, and having decided so, she turned about at once, walking rapidly.

The return trip seemed very long, and the forced pace told upon her strength. She kept it up, however, till the goal had been reached. Having her orphan inside the bars she deposited him in a corner while she turned her attention to the row of little stalls or prison-pens which were built along the outside of the fence. This institution she had observed with great interest. Each pen was just large enough to crowd a ewe in, being calculated to allow her no liberty in any way; they were all built so that sheep could be put into them from the inside of the corral. She opened one of them, seized upon the first lamb at hand and put it in, and when the fond mother put her nose in after it Janet gave her a good push from behind and sent her in also; then she abstracted the rightful lamb and put the other in its place. Having closed the opening she climbed over the fence and sat down on the prairie beside the pen where she could look in between the rails and watch developments.

The lamb, probably because it had gone too long without that first drink which is the making of a lamb, did not seem able to rise. Janet put her hand in between the rails and gave it a lift. Once it had its legs under it, it managed for itself. To Janet's great satisfaction it filled up visibly. When it was done, she let out the ewe, who hastened to find her own again, knocking down the orphan in the process of getting out. As he made no effort to rise, Janet again took him in her arms.

The lamb seemed dispirited and chilled. This is a condition which is quite likely to overtake a "wet-lamb" if it is neglected from the outset, in which case its little stock of vitality is not easily regained. Despite the brightness of the weather there was a touch of chill in the air. Janet sat down in the doorway of the shack and held the lamb in her lap, doubling her skirt up over it in order to get it warm. Like any other lamb it submitted to whatever was done to it. Now it lay so quietly in her lap, and looked so innocent and helpless, that she felt permanently responsible for it. Especially as she did not know what else to do with it. Presently she felt it growing warmer and warmer; then it went to sleep.

Janet was tired. She sat there watching the prairie. In the sky the same dark birds were soaring. The suspended effigy of Mr. Pete Harding, swayed by the slightest breeze, moved its loose-hung arms and legs as if it were being visited by the drunken spirit of its owner. At intervals the solitude found expression in a sheep's automatic baa. The birds, which were buzzards, wheeled round and round as the time passed and brought them nothing. One of them, tired of wheeling round and round, sat on one of the posts of the corral and waited for something to happen. These were the dusky angels that carried away the lamb's body of the day before; she had seen its little white bones down at the foot of the knoll. The present watcher, a stoop-shouldered, big, rusty-black bird, was quite indifferent to human presence; he sat on his post like a usurer on his high stool, calculating and immovable. Janet knew what was in his mind. She drew the lamb a little closer and tucked her skirt in around it. Again she fell to contemplating the prairie—and the sky. The birds above seemed connected with the machinery of Time. At unexpected moments a sheep gave voice to it all "in syllable of dolour."

No, she would not really want to be a sheepherder; at least not alone. Last night, or whenever Steve Brown was about, everything looked quite different. Even now, she reflected, it was not so bad as it might be, and she did not really mind it much; it was his place; he was just over the horizon somewhere; and as long as it was his place she did not feel so lonesome. He had long ago turned the flock about; she could picture him as he followed them along, nearer and nearer. After a while he would be home.

She sat holding the lamb till the sun began to redden; then it occurred to her that, under the circumstances, it was her duty to get supper. It was a welcome thought; she would see what she could do. She put the orphan at the foot of the bunk, drew the quilt over it and set to work.

It had now become apparent that she was destined to spend another night at the shack; this, however, gave her no serious concern. It entered her mind only in the form of the pleasant reflection that nobody would be worried by her absence; the farmer's family would think she had gone to the county-seat and then reached her destination at Merrill; the folks at Merrill would think she was still at the school, all of which was very fortunate, and so she thought no more about it. She was mainly concerned with the lambs, and particularly, at the present moment, with supper. She spread down her two white napkins, which had not seen service the night before, placing them corner to corner or diamondwise on the ground; then she set the table and examined further into the resources of the provision box. While the fire was getting itself under way, she completed the effect by arranging some flowers in a cup and placing a nosegay upon the bosom of nature. Before long there was a good bed of coals in the fire-hole.

Supper was just ready when the flock reached the knoll and began streaming up the slope into the corral; then followed Steve Brown escorted by three sheep. He carried four lambs, one on each arm, and two others whose heads protruded from the breast of his coat.

"Four more!" she exclaimed, stepping forward to meet them. "Did you get all there were, Mr. Brown?"

"I got all I saw, Miss Janet," he answered, casting a bright and intelligent look at the fire-hole. "And I was afraid I had lost you. You got supper, did n't you? That looks nice."

Steve Brown's conversation was largely illumined by the light of his eye; likewise his silences, which were many. They were direct eyes which paid close attention and shot their beams straight as along the barrel of a rifle. The live interest of his look, and the slight but expressive play of his features, made up quite well for the occasional scarcity of words.

"Yes, everything is all ready," she said.

"Well, I won't keep you waiting long."

When he had rid himself of the lambs he strode down the slope to the spring, and presently she heard him "washing up" with more than his usual vigor. Pretty soon he came up and bore a beaming countenance to supper.

Janet, as she poured the coffee and passed the hot bread, gave an account of her day's work, telling first about the orphan and how she managed with him; then she took up the other lambs, consecutively.

"I got four altogether," she ended.

"Oh, you should not have done that."

"No?"

There was mingled surprise and disappointment in her look; but mainly disappointment.

"You could never have handled them that way—if they had been really coming fast. It would take a wagon. There is no use of your working like that."

"But," she insisted, after a pause, "you could n't have carried more than those four, could you?"

"No—that was just about a load."

"And we got them all in, did n't we?"

"Oh, yes—yes. What I meant was that you ought n't to work like that. But we certainly did get them all in. And it's the only way we could have done it. As it turned out, it was just the right thing to do—all that was necessary." After a moment's silence he felt he had not said quite enough. "You did first-class," he added. "The fact is, nobody could have done better."

Janet recovered her cheerfulness at once. She resumed her story of the day, and then, as she got around to the subject of the lamb again, she went into the shack and brought him out. Having been assured that he was looking well and was likely to recover, she sat down at her place again with the lamb in her lap. He lay there contentedly while she finished her supper.

"Yes," said Steve in answer to another of her questions, "lambs are kind of cute. Sometimes I feel bad for a lamb myself when his mother won't have anything to do with him. You ought to be out here later on, Miss Janet, when the lambs have all been born and are starting to get frisky. That's when the fun begins."

"I have heard that lambs play together like children," she said.

"Oh, they do. You see they've got to learn jumping, too. And climbing—like a goat. That first lamb will soon be so lively that plain running won't be good enough for him. He 'll want to do fancy tricks."

"Nature teaches them to play," observed Janet. "That's to give them practice and make them strong."

"I should say she did," said Steve, referring thus familiarly to Nature. "She puts all sorts of notions into their heads."

"What do they do, for instance, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, for one thing, a lamb likes to practice jumping. You see, sheep don't belong on prairies, like cattle. Cattle belong on prairies the same as buffalo, but sheep don't; they belong on mountains; that's the reason the young ones are so handy with their hoofs. They like to climb and jump, but on a prairie there is n't any place to jump off of. Well, maybe some day a lamb will be galloping and cavorting around, and he 'll come across a hunk of rock salt that has been all licked off smooth on top and hollowed out. He 'll take a running jump at that and land on it with all four hoofs in one spot and then he'll take a leap off the top. Then, when he sees what a good circus actor he is, he will gallop right around and do it over again; and the rest of his gang will start in and follow him, because what one sheep does the rest have got to do. That way they get to running in a circle round and round and taking turns at jumping."

"How perfectly funny!" exclaimed Janet.

"That's the way they do. They run races and play 'stump-the-leader' and 'hi-spy' and 'ring-around-the-rosy.' Why, Miss Janet, if you were out here a little later on, you would think it was recess all the time."

"I wish I might be," said Janet.

"A lamb likes to be on the go," he continued. "Sheep really ain't lively enough for a lamb, so he has to go off and have his own fun. He 'll gallop around with a troop of other lambs and won't stop except long enough to go home for dinner."

"I don't see," said Janet, "how a lamb can go away like that and ever find his mother again, in such a crowd. They all look alike."

"That's easy enough. Every sheep's voice is keyed up to a different pitch; they all sound different some way or another. And every lamb has a little voice of his own."

"Yes, I've noticed that. But I did n't know there was any object in it. Or that they knew each other's voices."

"Oh, certainly they do. When a lamb gets hungry he whisks right around and runs into the flock and starts up his tune. She'll hear it and she'll start up too; and that way they'll keep signaling to each other. A lamb will run into a crowd of a thousand sheep and go right to his mother. When he has arrived, maybe she will smell him to make sure; and if he is all right, why—then it is all right."

"Then they don't ever go by looks, even when they're acquainted."

"Oh, no. They are different from people. They are not like you that know all the children by sight and don't have to call the roll. When a lamb wants to find a sheep, he just calls and she answers 'Present.'"

Steve Brown did not seem to lose sight of the fact that he was addressing his remarks to a school-teacher. While something of humor passed over his countenance at times, his attitude toward her was mainly sober and earnest. Janet, all absorbed in the subject of lambs, was in quite as serious a mood. She waited for him to continue; but he was not one to keep on indefinitely without questioning, not presuming, evidently, to know how much further she might be interested.

"She answers 'Present,'" repeated Janet. "Well, then; while they are answering each other, does she go to the lamb or does the lamb go to her?"

"Most likely they'll go to each other, and meet halfway. You see, that's the quickest way, When a lamb is hungry he wants his dinner right off."

"Then they are not any trouble in that way at all, are they!"

"Well—it's all easy enough after they have learned each other's voices. But at first they don't know that, and it takes them a little time to get it into their minds. That's when a herder has got trouble to keep things from getting mixed up. And if she has twins she has got to learn them both by heart."

"That's so—she would, would n't she!"

"Oh, yes. And twins learn to know each other, too. That's so they can go home to dinner together. For of course if she let one of them come alone it would n't be fair."

"Then sheep know that much!"

"I don't know that they do. I guess it's nature that tends to that, too. But there's a lot that nature is too busy to tend to. Then it's all up to the herder."

"Lambs are really quite dependent upon human care, then, are n't they?"

"Oh, yes. That is, if you want to try and save them all—like that one." He pointed to the occupant of her lap. "A lamb has got to get a meal right away, and a little sleep, and not get too chilled, or wet. Then if his mother and him stick together till they know each other by voice and smell, his chances are all right. After that you could n't lose him."

"How long will it be, Mr. Brown, before everything is running that way?"

"It will start in just a few days. Just as soon as we get the lamb band going."

"The lamb band?" she queried.

"We have some lambs there in the corral now. Well, all that come to-morrow will go in with them, and in a day or two all that are strong and active will go out with their mothers and be the lamb band. All the others that have n't dropped lambs yet are called the drop band; they travel too much for lambs. Sheep with lambs ought to go out together and be handled separate. Well, whenever a lamb is born in the drop band, he is brought home to the corral; then when he knows things and is a little stronger he goes out with the lamb band; that way we keep advancing them right along, same as in school. First in the First Reader, then in the Second Reader, and so on."

"Oh, I see," said Janet, growing more deeply interested.

"And it is n't very long, of course, till they have all gone through and are in one band again. The lambs are all having a high old time and managing for themselves; and then one man can handle them again. The worst of the trouble is over, and there are not so many things to do all at once."

This seemed to exhaust the subject.

"What are you going to do to-morrow?" she inquired.

"Well, if I was sure that the herder was coming, I would just take them out and let the lambs drop behind, the same as to-day. Then if he brings the wagon along, as I told him to, he could get them in—that is, if there are a great many of them. There might not be many lambs come; but the trouble is that you can't tell. If I thought there were going to be a great many lambs, and he was n't coming right away, I would keep the whole bunch here and not take them out at all—that is, I would if I had feed. But I could hardly feed twelve hundred sheep on a mere chance if I had it to spare. But then, I don't think he will stay away any longer. I 'll just take them out."

"Really, it is quite a problem, is n't it?"

"That's just what I was beginning to think," he replied.

"How many lambs might there be in the next day or two, if they really started coming?"

"Maybe two or three hundred."

"Two or—!"

The words died out as Janet looked down in her lap and considered the one. He was resting comfortably.

"Two—or—three—hundred," she repeated vacantly.