With a return of courage he essayed another magnificent effort. This time, in seeking to enforce the necessary authority, his voice, which was rarely gentle, became unduly harsh.
“You best beat it to your bunk, Molly, gal,” he said. “You best make your blankets right away. Hev a good cry. Ther’ ain’t nothin’ for a dandy gal like a bunch of tears you couldn’t swab right in a week. Susie Larks allus reckoned that way. You ain’t heard tell of Susie Larks, the li’l dancin’ gal o’ Moss Crik, down Arizony way. If things got amiss she just used to cry like hell till they came right, an’—— Eh?”
Again the girl had looked up, and the whole of her tragedy was there, looking back at him out of eyes which were gazing in horrified, tearless amazement. She said no word. She gave no other sign. And, after one apprehensive glance, Lightning had shuffled off out of the room and betaken himself to the lean-to workshop, where he forthwith set the stove going.
The efforts of his brain amounted to something little short of storm that night. He planned, and smoked, and swore. And he swore, and smoked, and planned. And by daylight a tangle of ineptitude completely befogged him. The only clear idea that gripped him was a settled determination that he was going to see “Molly, gal” through her troubles, if it used up his stock of brain-power and left him with nothing over for himself.
With daylight, however, he was free to act, which, in Lightning, was a wholly different proposition. His motives for the things he did that day were never at any moment clear to him. Something impelled him to ride into Hartspool. He took money with him, feeling that at such a time he might need it. He may have been right. At any rate, he contrived to leave it behind him in the town, having exchanged it for a subdued, drunken melancholy.
But he had obtained other results. First a Mounted Policeman appeared at the homestead. He was closely followed by a doctor. And, finally, a man who was known to be a carpenter in Hartspool made his appearance. He interviewed them all, and sternly headed them off from the stricken Molly.
A few days later, Lightning took another trip into Hartspool. He had no money which he could take with him. This time he drove the heavy team and the double-bob sleigh, which usually hauled cordwood. His trip was rapid, for his burden was light. The latter was just one long box of unpolished wood.
He had feared that Molly would accompany him, but, to his extreme satisfaction, the girl completely broke down at the last moment, and the wife of the carpenter, who was a kindly creature, who usually aided her man in that work which was not intended for the living, volunteered to remain and look after her until Lightning’s return.
And now, with the passing of time, and the return of the girl’s smile, Lightning gazed back on those painful days, and took full credit to himself for her recovery. He felt himself more than entitled. His little vanities peeped out from amidst his sterling qualities like blemishes dotting pure, crude metal.
Oh, yes. He had done well. He was glad. And, to his credit, no thought of thanks concerned him. The girl’s smile and well-being were more than sufficient reward for anything he had done. She was the farmer in place of her father. And he had achieved the thing he had desired.