II
The sun was just peering over the rim of the prairie, when Mrs. Warren turned in from the dusty road, picked her way among the browning weeds to the plain, unpainted, shanty-like structure which marked the presence of a homesteader. Except to the east, where stood the tents and shacks of the new railroad’s construction gang, not another human habitation broke the dull, monotonous rolling sea of prairie. 249
Mrs. Warren pounded vigorously upon the rough boards of the door.
A full half-minute she waited; then she glared petulantly at the unresponsive barrier, and pounded upon it again.
Ordinarily she would have waited patiently, for the multitude of duties of one day often found Mrs. Babcock still weary with the dawning of the next––especially since Steve had allied himself with Jack Warren’s engineering corps.
Funds had run low, and the two valetudinarians had reached the stage of desperation where they were driven to acknowledge failure, when Jack Warren happened along, in the van of the new railroad.
The work of home-building, from the raw material, had been too much for Steve’s enfeebled physique; so it happened that Mollie performed most of his share, as well as all of her own. Yet Steve toiled to the limit of his endurance, and each day, at sundown, flung himself upon his blanket, spread beneath the stars, dog-tired, fairly trembling with weariness. But he soon developed a prodigious appetite, 250 and, after the first few weeks, slept each night like a dead man, until sunrise.
This morning Annie Warren was too full of her errand to pause an instant. She stood a moment listening, one ear to the splintery, unfinished boards, then––
“Mollie,” she ventured, “are you awake?”
No answer.
“Mollie”––more insistent, “wake up and let me in.”
Still no response.
“Mollie,” for the third time, “it is I, Annie; may I enter?”
“Come.” The voice was barely audible.
Within the uncomfortably low, dim room the visitor impetuously crossed the earthen floor half-way to a rude bunk built against the wall, then paused, her round, childlike face soberly lengthening.
“Mollie, you have been crying!” she charged, resentfully, as if the act constituted a personal offence. “You can’t deceive me. The pillow is soaked, and your eyes are red.” She came forward, impulsively, and threw herself on the bed, her arm about the other. 251
“What is it? Tell me––your friend––Annie.”
Beneath the light coverlet, Mollie Babcock made a motion of deprecation, almost of repugnance.
“It is nothing. Please don’t pay any attention to me.”
“But it is something. Am I not your friend?”
For a moment neither spoke. Annie Warren all at once became conscious that the other woman was looking at her in a way she had never done before.
“Assuredly you are my friend, Annie. But just the same, it’s nothing.” The look altered until it became a smile.
“Tell me, instead, why you are here,” Mollie went on. “It is not usual at this time of day.”
Annie Warren felt the rebuff, and she was hurt.
“It is nothing.” The visitor was on her feet, her voice again resentful; her chin was held high, while her long lashes drooped. “Pardon me for intruding, for––”
No answer save the quiver of a sensitive red lip.
“Annie, child, pardon me. I wouldn’t for the world hurt you; but it is so hard, what you ask.” Mollie Babcock rose, now, likewise. “However, if you wish––”
“No, no!” The storm was clearing. “It was all my fault. I know you’d rather not.” She had grasped Mollie’s arms, and was forcing her backward, toward the bunk, gently, smilingly. “Be still. I’ve something to tell you. Are you quite ready to listen?”
“Yes, I’m quite ready.”
“You haven’t the slightest idea what it is? You couldn’t even guess?”
“No, I couldn’t even guess.”
“I’ll tell you, then.” The plump Annie was bubbling like a child before a well-filled Christmas stocking. “It’s Jack: he’s coming this very day. A big, fierce Indian brought the letter this morning.” She sat down tailor fashion on the end of the bunk. “He nearly ate up Susie––Jack christened her Susie because she’s a Sioux––because she wouldn’t let him put the 253 letter right into my own hand. That’s why I’m up so early.”
She looked slyly at the woman on the bed.
“Who do you suppose is coming with him?” she asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” in a tone of not caring, either.
“Guess, Mollie!”
“Steve?”
“Of course––Steve. You knew all the time, only you wouldn’t admit it. Oh, I’m so glad! I want to hug some one. Isn’t it fine?”
“Yes, fine indeed. But you don’t mean that you want to hug Steve?”
“No, goose. You know I meant Jack; but I––” She regarded her friend doubtfully. But Mollie Babcock was dressing rapidly, and her face was averted.
“And Mollie, I didn’t tell you all––almost the best. We’re going home, Jack says; going right away; this very week, maybe.”
For a moment the dressing halted. “I am very glad––for you,” said Mollie, in an even voice.
“Glad, for me!” mimickingly, baitingly. 254 “Mollie Babcock, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were envious.”
Mollie said nothing.
“Or weren’t glad your husband is coming.”
Still no word.
“Or––or––Mollie, what have I done?” Annie cried in dismay. “Don’t cry so; I was only joking. Of course you know that I didn’t mean that you envied our good luck, or that you wouldn’t be crazy to see Steve.”
“But it’s so. God help me, it’s so!”
“Mollie!” Mrs. Warren was aghast. “Forgive me! I’m ashamed of myself!”
“There’s nothing to forgive; it’s so.”
“Please don’t.” The two were very close, very tense, but not touching. “Don’t say any more. I didn’t hear––”
“You did hear. And you suspected, or you wouldn’t have suggested!”
“Mollie, I never dreamed. I––”
Of a sudden the older woman faced about. Seizing the other by the shoulders, she held her prisoner. She fixed the frightened woman’s eyes with a stern look. 255
“Will you swear that you never knew––that it was mere chance––what you said?”
“Yes.”
“You swear you didn’t?”––the grip tightened––“you swear it?”
“I swear––oh, you’re hurting me!”
Mollie Babcock let her hands drop.
“I believe you”––wearily. “It seemed that everybody knew. God help me!” She sank to the bed, her face in her hands. “I believe I’m going mad!”
“Mollie––Mollie Babcock! You mustn’t talk so––you mustn’t!” The seconds ticked away. Save for the quick catch of suppressed sobs, not a sound was heard in the mean, austere little room; not an echo penetrated from the outside world.
Then suddenly the brown head lifted from the pillow, and Mollie faced almost fiercely about.
“You think I am––am mad already.” Then, feverishly: “Don’t you?”
Helpless at a crisis, Annie Warren could only stand silent, the pink, childish under-lip held tight between her teeth to prevent a quiver. 256 Her fingers played nervously with the filmy lace shawl about her shoulders.
Mollie advanced a step. “Don’t you?”
Annie found her voice.
“No, no, no! Oh, Mollie, no, of course not! You––Mollie––” Instinct all at once came to her rescue. With a sudden movement she gathered the woman in her arms, her tender heart quivering in her voice and glistening in her eyes. “Mollie, I can’t bear to have you so! I love you, Mollie. Tell me what it is––me––your friend, Annie.”
Mollie’s lips worked without speech, and Annie became insistent.
“Tell me, Mollie. Let me share the ache at your heart. I love you!”
Here was the crushing straw to one very, very heartsick and very weary. For the first time in her solitary life, Mollie Babcock threw reticence to the winds, and admitted another human being into the secret places of her confidence.
“If you don’t think me already mad, you will before I’m through.” Like a caged wild thing that can not be still, she was once more on her feet, vibrating back and forth like a shuttle. 257 “I’m afraid of myself at times, afraid of the future. It’s like the garret used to be after dark, when we were children: it holds only horrors.
“Child, child!” She paused, her arms folded across her breast, her throat a-throb. “You can’t understand––thank God, you never will understand––what the future holds for me. You are going back home; back to your own people, your own life. You’ve been here but a few months. To you it has been a lark, an outing, an experience. In a few short weeks it will be but a memory, stowed away in its own niche, the pleasant features alone remaining vivid.
“Even, while here, you’ve never known the life itself. You’ve had Jack, the novelty of a strange environment, your anticipation of sure release. You are merely like a sightseer, locked for a minute in a prison-cell, for the sake of a new sensation.
“You can’t understand, I say. You are this, and I––I am the life-prisoner in the cell beyond, peering at you through the bars, viewing you and your mock imprisonment.” 258
Once more the speaker was in motion, to and fro, to and fro, in the shuttle-trail. “The chief difference is, that the life-prisoner has a hope of pardon; I have none––absolutely none.”
“Mollie”––pleadingly, “you mustn’t. I’ll ask Jack to give Steve a place at home, and you can go––”
“Go!” The bitterness of her heart welled up and vibrated in the word. “Go! We can’t go, now or ever. It’s death to Steve if we leave. I’ve got to stay here, month after month, year after year, dragging my life out until I grow gray-haired––until I die!” She halted, her arms tensely folded, her breath coming quick. Only the intensity of her emotion saved the attitude from being histrionic. In a sudden outburst, she fiercely apostrophized:
“Oh, Dakota! I hate you, I hate you! Because I am a woman, I hate you! Because I would live in a house, and not in this endless dreary waste of a dead world, I hate you! Because your very emptiness and solitude are worse than a prison, because the calls of the living things that creep and fly over your endless bosom are more mournful than death itself, I 259 hate you! Because I would be free, because I respect sex, because of the disdain for womanhood that dwells in your crushing silence, I hate––oh, my God, how I hate you!” She threw her arms wide, in a frantic gesture of rebellion.
“I want but this,” she cried passionately: “to be free; free, as I was at home, in God’s country. And I can never be so here––never, never, never! Oh, Annie, I’m homesick––desperately, miserably homesick! I wish to Heaven I were dead!”
Annie Warren, child-woman that she was, was helpless, when face to face with the unusual. Her senses were numbed, paralyzed. One thought alone suggested itself.
“But”––haltingly––“for Steve’s sake––certainly, for him––”
“Stop! As you love me, stop!” Again no suggestion of the histrionic in the passionate voice. “Don’t say that now. I can’t stand it. I––oh, I don’t mean that! Forget that I said it. I’m not responsible this morning. Please leave me.” 260
She was prostrate on the bed at last, her whole body a-tremble.
“But––Mollie––”
“Go––go!” cried Mollie, wildly. “Please go!”
Awed to silence, Annie Warren stared helplessly a moment, then gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and slipped silently away.