THE SANITY OF THE WILD
Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the eternal law of necessity,—the necessity of sunburnt, stunted grass,—the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was independent, care-free, and healthy.
The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the big artesian well,—a vivid blot of green against the dun background. The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,—a goodly sized soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about, except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked the infrequent creeks,—creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in desperate competition for daily bread.
So much for the day. With the coming of dusk, a coolness like a benediction took the place of heat. The south wind gradually died down with the descending sun, until immediately following the setting it was absolutely still; now it sprang up anew, and wandered on until the break of day.
Such an evening in late July found Rankin and Baker stretched out like boys upon a pile of hay in the latter's yard. The big man had just arrived; the old buckboard, with its mouse-colored mustangs, stood just as he had driven it up. Scotty knew him well enough to know that he had come for a purpose, and he awaited its revelation. Rankin slowly filled and lit his pipe, drew thereon until the glow from the bowl was reflected upon his face, and blew a great cloud of smoke out into the gathering dusk.
"Baker," he asked at last, "what are we going to do for the education of these youngsters of ours? We can't let them grow up here like savages."
Scotty rolled over on his side, and leaned his head comfortably in his hand.
"I've thought of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, however, neither plan seems exactly practical at this time."
Rankin smoked a minute in silence. "How would it do to move into civilization six months of the year—the Winter six?" he suggested.
Scotty considered for a moment. "Do you mean that seriously?" he asked.
"Yes."
By the sense of feeling alone, the Englishman rolled a cigarette skilfully. "How about the stock here while we're gone," he said hesitatingly. "Do you suppose we'd find anything left when we came back in the Spring?"
Rankin crowded the half-burned tobacco down into the pipe-bowl with his little finger. "I don't think you got the idea," he explained. "My plan was for you to go East in the Fall and put the kids in school. I'd stay here and see that everything ran smoothly while you were gone. Mrs. Baker has said a dozen times that she wanted a change—for a time, anyway."
Scotty threw one long leg over the other. "As usual you're right, Rankin," he said slowly. "The Lord knows Mollie gets restless enough at times. People were like ants in a hill where she was raised, and that life was a part of her." He took a last puff at the cigarette, and with a toss sent the smoking stump spinning like a firefly into the darkness. "And Flossie can't grow up wild—I know that. I'll talk your suggestion over with Mollie first, but I think I'd be safe in saying right now that we'll accept."
For a moment Rankin did not speak; then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe upon his heel.
"Excuse me if I keep going back to something unpleasant, Baker," he said slowly, "but in considering the matter there's one thing I don't want you to forget." Then, after a meaning pause, he went on: "It's the same reason I had for not introducing Ben in the first place."
Scotty drew out his book of rice-paper again almost involuntarily.
"I'd thought of that this time," he said; then paused to finger a gauzy sheet absently. "I don't see why I should consider it now, though—seeing I didn't before."
Rankin said nothing, and conversation lapsed. Irresistibly, but so gradually as to be all but unconscious, the spirit of the prairie night—a sensation, a conception of infinite vastness, of unassailable serenity—stole over and took possession of the men. The ambitious and manifold artificial needs for which men barter their happiness, their sense of humanity, even life itself, seemed beyond belief out there alone with the stars, with the prairie night-wind singing in the ears; seemed so puny that they elicited only a smile. The lust of show, of extravagance, follies, wisdoms, man's loves and hates—how their true proportions stand revealed against the eternal background of immeasurable distance, in nature's vast scheme!
Scotty cleared his throat. "I used to think, when I first came here, that I'd been a fool; but now, somehow, at times like this, I wonder if I didn't blunder into the wisest act of my life." The prairie spirit had taken hold of him. "And the longer I stay the more it grows upon me that such a life as this, where one's success is not the measure of another's failure, is the only one to live. It is the only life," he added after a pause.
Rankin said nothing.
Scotty was silent for a moment, but the mood was too strong for him to remain so, and he went on.
"I know the ordinary person would laugh if I said it, but really, I believe I'm developing a distaste for money. It's simply another term for caste; and that word, with the unreasoning superiority it implies, has somehow become hateful to me." He looked up into the night.
"I used to think I was happy back in England. I had my home and my associates; born so, because their fathers were friends of my father, their grandfathers of my grandfather's class. As a small landlord I had my gentlemanly leisure; but as well as I know my name, I realize now that I could never return to that life again. Looking back, I see its intolerable narrowness, its petty smugness. By comparison it's like the relative clearness of the atmosphere there and here. There, perhaps I could see a few miles: here, I look away over leagues and leagues of distance. It's symbolic." The voice paused; the face, turned directly toward his companion's, tried in the half-darkness to read its expression. "I've been in this prairie country long enough now to realize that financially I've made a mistake. I can earn a living, and that's all; but nevertheless I'm happy—happier than I ever realized it was possible for me to be. I've got enough—more would be a burden to me. If I have a trouble in the world, it's because I see the inevitable prospect of money in the future,—money I don't want, for I'm an only son and my father is comparatively wealthy. Without turning his hand, his rent-roll is five thousand pounds a year. He's getting along in life. Some day—it may be five years, it may be fifteen—he will die and leave it to me. I am to maintain and pass on the family name, the family dignity. It was all cut and dried generations back, generations before I was born."
Still Rankin said nothing. For any indication he gave, the other's revelation might have been only that he had a hundred dollars deposited in the savings bank against a rainy day.
But Scotty was now fairly under headway. He stripped his reserve and confidence bare.
"You see now why I'm glad to consider your proposition. Whatever I believe myself must be of secondary importance. I've others to think about—Florence and her mother. Flossie is only a child, but Mollie is a woman, and has lived her life in sight of the brazen calf. She doesn't realize, she never can realize, that it is of brass and not of gold. Personally, I believe, as I believe in my own existence, that Flossie would be immeasurably happier if she never saw the other side of life,—the artificial side,—but lived right here, knowing what we taught her and developing like a healthy animal; perhaps, when the time came, marrying a rancher, having her own home, her own family interests, and living close to nature. But it can't be. I've got to develop her, cultivate her, fit her for any society." The voice paused, and the speaker turned his face away.
"God knows,—and He knows also that I love her dearly,—that looking into the future I wish sometimes she were the daughter of another man."
The minutes passed. The ponies shifted restlessly and then were still. In the lull, the soft night-breeze crooned its minor song, while near or far away—no human ear could measure the distance—a prairie owl gave its weird cry. Then silence fell as before.
Once more Scotty turned, facing his companion.
"I've a question to ask you, Rankin; may I ask it without offence?"
The big man nodded. By the starlight Baker caught the motion.
"You told me once that you were a college man, and that you had a Master's degree. From the very first you started cattle-raising on a big scale. You must have had money. Still, such being the case, you left culture and civilization far behind and came here to choose a life absolutely different. I have told you why I wish to educate my daughter. But why, feeling as you must have felt and must still feel, since you're here, why do you wish to educate this waif boy you've picked up? By all the standards of convention, he is at the very bottom of the social scale. Why do you want to do this?"
It was a psychological moment. Even in the semi-darkness, Rankin felt the other's eyes fixed piercingly upon him. He passed his hand over his face; he seemed about to speak. But the habit of reticence was too strong upon him. Even the inspiration of the Englishman's confidence was not sufficient to break the seal of his own reserve. He arose slowly and shook the clinging wisps of hay from his clothes.
"For somewhat the same reason as your own," he answered at last. "Ben, like Flossie, is a child, an odd old child to be sure, but nevertheless a child. I have no reason to know that when he grows up his beliefs will be my beliefs. He must see both sides of the coin, and judge for himself."
The speaker paused, then walked slowly over to the old buckboard. "It's getting late, and I've got a long drive home." With an effort he mounted into the seat and picked up the reins. "Good-night."
Scotty hesitated a moment, and then said, "Good-night."