3
We got to my house, and I helped her in. I told her to wait while I went to look at the fire to see whether my stacks were in danger, and to put out and feed the horse. Then I went back, and found her sitting where I had left her, and as I went in I heard again that little moan of pain.
The house was as light as day, without a lamp. The light from the fire shone against the western wall of the room almost as strong as sunlight, and as we sat there we could hear the roar of the fire rising in the gusts of the wind, dying down, but with a steady undertone, like the wind in the rigging of a ship. I got some supper, and after saying that she couldn't eat, Rowena ate ravenously.
She had gone away from Blue-grass Manor, whipped forth by Mrs. Mobley's abuse, days and days before, living on what she had carried with her until it was gone, drinking from the brooks and runs of the prairie, and then starving on rose-haws, and sleeping in stacks until I had found her looking for the pool. If people could only have known! Presently she moaned again, and I made her lie down on the bed.
"What will you do with me, Jacob?" she asked.
"We'll think about that in the morning," said I.
"Maybe you can bury me in the morning," she said after a while. "Oh, Jake, I'm scared, I'm scared. My trouble is comin' on! My time is up, Jake. Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do?"
I went out and sat on the stoop and thought about this. Finally I made up my mind what she really meant by "her trouble," and I went back to her side. I found her moaning louder and more agonizingly, now: and in my turn I had my moment of panic.
"Rowena," I said, "I'm goin' out to do something that has to be done. Will you stay here, and not move out of this room till I come back?"
"I'll have to," she said. "I guess I've walked my last."
So I went out and saddled the fresh horse, and started through that fiery night for Monterey Centre. The fire had burned clear past the town, and when I got there I saw what was left of one or two barns or houses which had caught fire from the burning prairie, still blazing in heaps of embers. The village had had a narrower escape from the rain of ashes and sparks which had swept to the very edges of the little cluster of dwellings. I rode to Doctor Bliven's drug store, climbed the outside stairway which led to his living-room above, and knocked. Mrs. Bliven came to the door. I explained that I wanted the doctor at once to come out to my farm.
"He's not here," said she. "He is dressing some burns from the fire; but he must be nearly through. I'll go after him."
I refused to go in and sit until she came back, but stood at the foot of the stair on the sidewalk. The time of waiting seemed long, but I suppose he came at once.
"Who's sick, Jake?" he asked.
"A girl," I said. "A woman."
"At your house?" asked he. "What is it?"
"It's Rowena Fewkes," said I.
"I thought they had gone to Colorado," said the doctor.
"They said they were leaving her behind," said Mrs. Bliven. "They said.... Do you say she's at your house? Who's with her?"
"No one," said I. "She's alone. Hurry, Doctor: she needs you bad."
"Just a minute," said he. "What seems to be the matter? Is she very bad?"
"It's a confinement case," said I. I had been thinking of the proper word all the way.
"And she alone!" exclaimed Mrs. Bliven. "Hurry, Doctor! I'll get your instruments and medicine-case, and you can hitch up. You stay here, Jake. I want to speak to you."
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 nobody will ever see again; for I do not believe there will ever be seen such an expanse of grass 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 grass 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-grass. 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 grass, 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 hardships, 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 passed 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 passed 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 clittering 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 lusty. 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 embarrassed 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 God 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 hell an' high water--f'r his sake, Jake."