That girl of Johnson's.

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

LOrjOMNSON’S.

By JEAN KATE LUDLUM,

Contents

aiAPTER.

I— The Girl

II — The Stranger

Chapter I. The Girl

The day was dreary when she was born, not only because the rain was falling in a drizzling fashion and a mist hung over the hills, but because she was born. Every one who knew her said so ; she herself used all her voice to protest against it, and as she had a peculiarly penetrating voice from the first it was impressed upon her hearers with unpleasant distinctness.

Her mother, having a soft heart, felt all her tenderness awaking for her weak, crying daughter, and gathered her into her arms with a half pitying caress. But her mother did not live long, and some of her friends went so far as to say that it was well she did not, for she would have spoiled the girl.

Her father — well, there was no danger of her father spoiling the girl with tenderness. He considered her birth one of the blows fate dealt him, and he said he had had many blows from fate. He said fate was against him ; people said he was shiftless ; they said also that there was hardly a doubt that the girl would be the same. None of the Johnsons amounted to much — at least that branch of the family. Lemuel Johnson, this man’s brother, was rich, rumor said, and they did not blame him for having nothing to do with his shiftless brother. He lived in a fine house in New York ; was enterprising and shrewd ; how could any one blame him for dropping this ne’er-dowell brother ?

His brother thought differently. Lemuel was rich ; fate had been good to him ; it was but right that he should help him ; it was an unheard of thing that he had never offered to help him, especially when this added burden was laid upon his already too heavily laden shoulders. Of what good to him was a girl? Girls were of little use. Had she been a boy — but she was not a boy, and she was motherless from the time she was three weeks old.

With a pathetic appreciation of the fitness of things her mother named her Dolores. And from the time she was taken from the dying mother’s arms into the kindly if rather awkward arms of Betsy Glenn, her large brown eyes, shaded by long curling lashes, looked out upon the world with a strange gravity and a knowledge of what it meant to be brought into the world unwelcome and un loved.

She seldom cried. She never cooed as other and happier babies do. She would lie for hours in her rude cradle and stare at nothing, the neighbors said, with those wonderful eyes of hers until the heart of her rough but kindly friend, Betsy Glenn, throbbed with an undefined pity for the strange child. And as she grew older silence grew upon her. All the happiness, all the brightness of life that come to most girls, seemed shut out from her by that hard fact of not being wanted. But she apparently cared little about it ; her thoughts seemed far away and dreamy.

She said little and the neighbors seldom ran in to gossip with her as they did with each other, for there was no use ; she took no interest in them or their gossip ; no one could talk easily with her eyes upon them.. So, when she grew old enough and there was no further need of Betsy Glenn’s presence and care, she was able to attend to the household

TEA T GIRL OF JOHNSON* 8, 7

matters herself, they left her alone ; even the children of her own age dropped her as though she had been dead.

She was an excellent cook, and kept the house well ; her friend and her mother’s friend had taught her that, and in these things her father had no fault to find. He seldom spoke to her ; if the food were well cooked he never found fault; he never praised it or her; he ate his meals in silence, and went out of the house. She saw him only at meal times; his evenings were spent at the tavern; hers were spent at home mending his clothing or doing whatever was to be done.

Sometimes she sat, not lighting the candle, with folded hands, staring into the fire or out on the moonlit mountains, with her large, far-seeing eyes, late into the night — for she always sat up till her father returned from the tavern, and the tavern hours were late — dreaming her thoughts and her dreams.

What these thoughts and dreams were no one knew, no one cared to know ; she was peculiar, they said, and best left alone. As to how she felt having so few friends they gave no thought. She performed all the duties that came to her hand, that was all that was expected of her.

And to every one in the village — out of it she knew no one — she was simply “that girl of Johnson’s.”

Chapter II. The Stranger

When Dolores was twenty her father awoke to the fact that she was no longer a child. That he had not noticed this before was surprising, she was so grave and stately in her simple dress going about her simpler duties, but it was owing to the fact that he never noticed her much.

The knowledge of her age and comeliness came to him suddenly one day.

Johnson was a blacksmith, and young Green, whose father was judge in the town across the mountain, was riding up from the valley when his mare cast a shoe, and he stopped at the shop to have it replaced.

Green was a pleasant fellow ; he talked a good deal between the blows of the hammer. Johnson was eager for news at any time, and Green was an interesting talker, on even the lightest themes.

The day was warm and sultry, and after a few minutes young Green asked for water. Johnson sent him to the house for it, saying that Dolores would give it to him. They had a fine well ; people traveling across the mountain generally stopped at their well.

“Who is Dolores?” young Green asked, lightly. There was no motive of curiosity in the question ; he asked it as a matter of courtesy simply, for the village people were fond of talking about themselves and their families, and were pleased if they were questioned regarding them.

The reply was given in a tone of utter indifference :

“DTores? DTores? Why, she’s jest D’lores !”

Green returned in a few minutes. There was a strange expression on his face, and he did not enter the shop at once ; he stood in the door- way, watching the harnniep fall Oil the glowing iron,

THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON'S.

The smith’s face was grimy ; the perspiration stood out on it in great drops ; the sinews of his arms were like knotted cords ; he swung the hammer with ease and strength.

Green watched him ; Green was town bred ; he had a college education, and his friends were to a certain extent like all other young fellows, fond of hunting and all athletic sports, but a strength like this man’s he had never before seen. Green was a man, and men admire strength.

He looked at the blacksmith’s face. It was full of lines and black with the grime from the iron. The glow of the fire was upon it.

Green’s eyes were keen and quick to note character. There was nothing striking in the man’s face ; if anything it was even duller than the majority of faces in the settlement. The mouth was sullen under the scant gray mustache ; the eyes were small, and showed a possible cruelty of nature — brute cruelty ; the forehead was low and narrow. There was not an intellectual line in the face.

A wrinkle of puzzled thought appeared between the young man’s brows. He turned and looked long and earnestly up the path that led to the tiny unpainted house set in its dreary garden a short distance up the mountain.

Dolores was standing in the door- way, her arms hanging dovm in front of her, her fingers clasped listlessly together. The sunlight was on her dark head ; her brown eyes were looking straight before her, and there was a light in her^ face that fairly transformed it. Usually there was little light in her face. Her lips were parted as though she had been speaking of pleasant things. I

The young fellow turned back into the shop. The blacksmith’s hammer had ceased its clanking on the red-hot iron ; he was fitting a shoe to the slender hoof. He glanced up.

“Ded ye get ther water?” he queried, in listless curiosity. “Wer D’lores thar?”

“Yes.”

Young Green took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his fair hair. The wrinkle of perplexity appeared and deepened between his brows.

“Johnson, is she your daughter?”

The blacksmith let down the mare’s hoof and straightened up in surprise. No one had ever before asked about Dolores. There was something in the young man’s voice that roused his sluggish nature. With the back of his hand he wiped the drops from his grimy face.

“She my darter ? Wal, I reckon. My cursed luck thet she warn’t a boy ; boys is o’ use.”

A flash came into the clear blue eyes watching him ; a flush mounted the fair face showing even beneath the beard.

“Cursed luck? Man, you should thank your lucky star that she is a woman — and such a woman ! Where did she get her learning ?”

“Learnin’ ?”

The man was bewildered ; he laughed scornfully. The mare was growing impatient, and he lifted her hoof once more to his knee.

“She ain’t never had no learnin’ ’s far as I know. Thar ain’t no use in learnin’ — ’t least I ain’t never seen no use o’ it. Wimmen ’specially air better off ’thout it. Theys never has much sense best ways ye ken fix it. Ther only thing D’ lores knows how ter do is to keep her mouth shet. Better fer all wimmen if they did. Hyar’s yer mare reddy. Fine mare she. Mares is better’n wimmen gen’ly speakin ’ ; ye’d best keep to ’em. Let ther wimmen alone is ther way to keep outen mischief. A shillin’, sir ; thank ’ee.”

The mare wheeled out of the close shanty of a shop as though she were glad to get away. She was full of life and spirits, and a beautiful animal. When her master mounted she reared and plunged ; her tail swept the scanty grass at the door, her long silky mane swept his face ; her eyes were flashing, her nostrils dilated.

THAT QIBL OF JOHNSOHS.

The girl in the door- way lost her listless attitude. She came down the steps and stood at the rickety gate, her eyes afire, her cheeks fiushed. She called to him, and her voice — peculiarly penetrating, but full of rare sweetness — sounded like a note of music on the sultry air. He smiled at her. With a tight rein and a calm word he quieted the mare, then he rode up to the girl. His voice was pleasant ; to her it sounded grave and almost sweet.

“The mare is gentle as a kitten ; she would not harm me for the world. It is only one of her tricks to try to dismount me ; she knows she cannot do it. You are as fond of animals as of astronomy, are you not. Miss Johnson?”

Her gaze had strayed down to the shop. Her father was standing in the door- way rubbing his hands on his leathern apron and watching them. The fiash died out of her eyes, the flush from her face ; the listlessness had returned.

His gaze involuntarily followed hers. He received no reply from her, and expected none ; he understood with a rare instinct.

When he had ridden away she stood a long time at the gate. The far away look was in her eyes as she watched the black mare and her rider until the haze from the mountain hid them from her view.

Few such strangers came to the settlement. An occasional hunting party stopped there for a rest, or now and then some of the townspeople rode through on their way up or down the mountain, but they took not the least interest in the people there, and none in her. This one was pleasant to her ; she did not understand it ; she did not dream that he understood her better than she understood herself. She knew nothing of such natures as his. But his voice and face haunted her as did some other pleasant dreams.

When her father came in to dinner he watched her as she prepared the table ; he watched her as she ate. His eyes were on her constantly ; she knew it, but gave no

THAT GIRL OF JOHNSOT 8.

sign. She poured his coffee with a steady hand ; her eyes looked over and beyond him.

As he took up his hat to return to the shop he turned and asked, abruptly, but with little show of interest :

“How old air ye, girl?”

Her large eyes looked through and through him; her gaze was steady, his wavered ; her voice, too, was steady and slow :

“I am twenty, father.”

“Curse the girl !” he muttered, as he passed down the worn path to the shop with no haste in his slouching gait. “Curse all ther wimmen! Borned fools, every one of ’em ! Jest my luck thet she warn’t a boy ; boys is o’ use I”

. THAT GIBL OF JOHNSON* 8,

Chapter III. Her Learning

Dolores was sitting on the door-step one evening. Her father was at the tavern as usual, and as her household duties were finished she sat in the mellow moonlight that fiooded the mountain with radiance. She was no longer listless. Her lips were parted ; her eyes larger and darker than usual ; her face, raised to the starry heavens, was full of light. On her knees lay an old astronomy, and one slender finger marked the place of her reading.

In the distance a faint blue haze marked the pines in a cloudy mystery. A night bird whirred past her ; a katydid chirped ; afar in the valley a cow bell tinkled ; in the pines on the bank beside her a pigeon cooed.

As in a, dream she heard them ; she was lost in studying the heavens. Venus was hanging in the west above the mountain; the milky- way trailed across the sky like a vail of haze with its millions of tiny atoms.

She was lost to herself and her surroundings ; she did not hear the heavy footsteps approaching along the narrow path ; she saw nothing until a rough hand pulled the book from under her fingers. A deep oath smote the air. She knew who it was without looking up, and the light died out of her face and eyes. She leaned back against the door, her hands falling naturally in a listless attitude in her lap.

“Curse ye !” her father muttered, between his clenched teeth. “Curse ’em as invented books an’ learnin’ ! Thes is ther way ye waste yer time while I am away. Thes is why ye air so everlastin’ dumb as nobody ken a-nigh ye, an’ why ther ain’t more a-doin’ et ther shop. Ef ye’d talk to ther men an’ ’tract ’em they’d kem oft’ner’n theys do— ^ thar hosses’d cast mo’ shoes, an’ X’d mak^ mo’ money.

TEAT QIBL OF JOHNSON^ S,

Curse ye 1 Yer mother was fool ’nough, but ye’re worse. No wonder thar ain’t one but says ye air a fool, ’thout even ther sense o’ most.”

She rose up slowly to her full height and confronted him. There was a dull flush on her cheeks and a flash in her eyes, and he shrank from her. Her soul was in her eyes and his shrank from it.

“Father, say what you like of me ; you shall say nothing of my mother ; she is beyond your power now. ”

He changed the subject. The book had slipped from his hand and fallen to the ground ; he kicked it contemptuously. The flash deepened in her eyes, but she had had her say, and sat down. The moonlight was on her face and hair ; her shadow lay long and dark behind her.

“Theys telled me et ther tav’n thet ye was up ter thes ; they says ye were too high an ’mighty fer a common smith’s darter ; thet ye thought yer dad beneath yer ; thet ye never talks to ’em fer fear theys kyant understan’ ye. Theys ’lowed thet Betsy Glenn teached ye to read an’ write when ye were little. She was a schoolma’am once ower in Scruptown, an’ thought consid’rable o’ ther learnin’, Schoolma’ams is all fools ”

Her eyes were on him, and he stopped. Her mother had been a school-teacher ; she loved her books — some people said that she loved her books more than she did her husband, and that he was jealous of them and had forbidden her touching them.

Lavina Ketcham made a gentle wife ; she gave up much for peace, and at first she had loved her husband ; afterward she found out his brute nature. Her nature was fine, and she was true to him always, but love was out of the question then. He forbade her the use of her books, and in that only she would not obey him. For a nature like hers to die mentally or even to stagnate was impossible. She was above him as the stars she loved were above her, and she knew it, and he knew it also ; he hated her for it.

She was a school-teacher, and as school-teachers did not

TEAT QIBL OF JOHNSON'S, ' . 15

thrive that side of the mountain he olfered her a home, and she accepted his offer, believing him noble because of this generous act, as women will believe of the men they love until they have been proved otherwise, when the sweet if rather blind faith in them can never return once being destroyed.

But she did her best to make him happy, though for them both happiness was impossible. At first she tried to raise him to her level, but he never gave her any help in this, and she soon found it out of the question ; natures are different ; she found this out with a sadness that shadowed her life though she never repined at the life laid out before her. She had accepted it; she must abide the consequences. But she did not live long.

Her daughter inherited her nature only in a far higher degree. Her husband knew it, and the neighbors knew it. Never, however, did the girl’s father know that her mother’s books were her constant companions ; that she lived in them and on them ; that nearly every word of theirs was known to her by heart.

Betsy Glenn had been her mother’s schoolmate and friend. Betsy Glenn taught Dolores with all the power she was capable. She had long been dead, but the seed she sowed grew and grew ; some time it would ripen and bear fruit.

Had her father known of all this he would have stopped it from the first. He did not know it, for he had never taken enough interest in her to know it. Had he asked her she would have told him, but he never asked.

The jealousy he had always felt toward his wife for her love of books seethed and scorched in his heart as he stood facing her daughter and his. She possessed not one of his traits ; the mother’s nature had deepened tenfold in the daughter.

That night his comrades at the tavern had told him of this ; they taunted him with it ; they laughed at the girl. They did not like ber—GQt one of them. Narrow natures

THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON'S.

dislike and distrust that which they cannot understand. Young Green also had aroused his fears. Green had an education ; he had asked where the girl obtained her education, therefore she must have an education. To-night he was assured of this.

He kicked the book contemptuously, and muttered, under his breath, an oath against young Green. If ever he came there again it would be a sorry day for him.

Dolores said nothing.

A sudden frenzy seized him. He stooped and snatched the book from the ground. It was an old astronomy. In the advanced world of thought it was of little use ; wise men had proved many of the hypotheses erroneous. The girl did not know this. Perhaps in her dreams many things that the book left in mystery were made clear. But she did not know that these had been proved plain facts to the world — until the day young Green came.

She had been reading the book, for she preferred it to any of her mother’s books, and when young Green saw it the day he was there he was much surprised. He did not know that the villagers were fond of books, and had supposed them as a rule unable to read, for the little battered school-house where Dolores’ mother taught in the old days had long gone to ruin, and no one outside of the settlement cared to take the matter in hand. He asked her many questions, and her replies, though slow and quiet, showed that she had not only read but thought on many things and in a manner that would do justice to wiser heads than hers, simple girl as she was, with no other educator than the silent mountains and the memory of her mother. Young Green was strangely interested in her, and promised to take her a volume on the subject the next time he went that way.

She thanked him, and it was the first time she had thanked any one since Betsy Glenn died. That was two weeks before, and he had not come again aa he said he would, but ghe watched fox' him, feeling that he

THAT OIUL OF JOHNSON* S.

would keep his promise to her, feeling strangely glad when she thought of him. She had perfect faith in him.

Her father’s face was lurid as he snatched the book from the ground. His small eyes, close set, were full of brute cruelty ; the veins of his forehead were swollen. Dolores had never before seen him in such a mood. Her eyes dilated as she watched him ; that he would do her harm she would not be surprised.

The soft, sweet air of the night seemed to shrink from his curses ; she watched him, but she scarcely heard him.

In his hands, used to wielding the heavy hammer, the book was a toy ; his fingers closed over it, and in an instant it lay in shreds at her feet.

For a moment she did not comprehend what had been done ; she looked from the book to him, and back again. Her eyes were wide, as though she did not comprehend. Then she arose ; her face was white, and her eyes flashed. She looked at him, and he cowered before her. She was tall and stately; he had never before appreciated her dignity. Now he appreciated it to the full. The book was the dearest thing in the world to her; he could have wounded her in no other way.

Mechanically he gathered up the scattered fragments and as she held out her hand for them he gave them to her without a word, without even glancing at her. For the time she was more than his daughter ; her eyes were on his face, and her spirit ruled his. Then they strayed away to the mountain top vailed in haze. The moonlight was mellow along the sides ; a faint breeze strayed down and moved the waves of her hair.

The fire died out of her eyes ; her hands, mechanically holding the torn leaves of her book, fell listlessly at her side ; her shadow lay long and dark behind her.

There was a sense of mystery about her which her father could not understand ; he shrank from it and from her, and passed away up the dark bank heavy with the shadows of the pines that swayed in the faint breeze, and again silence fell around her.

Chapter IV. The Mare

“I have come again,” said young Green, laughing.

He stood in the door- way of the shop, holding the black mare by the bridle. She was impatient, and pawed the ground ; she shook her glossy head, and endeavored to turn back toward the sunlight of the mountain. She did not like the close shop or the strong hands of the blacksmith.

Johnson had been sitting on a bench outside of the shop, smoking a clay pipe. As the young man spoke he arose and advanced toward the mare.

“Another shoe, so soon?” he queried, shortly. Histone was not pleasant ; his face was surly, and he looked only at the mare.

“Yes,” the young man said, lightly. “Her right shoe this time. Come, Bess ; come, my girl !”

She tossed her head and reared ; she did not like the blacksmith.

Green laughed ; he spoke to her gently and stroked her arched neck.

“It puts her out of temper to go without shoes,” he said, pleasantly.

J ohnson nodded. He laid down his pipe and extended his hand, smelling strong of the rank tobacco, as though to take the bridle. She reared and threw her head. Green quieted her, and she went in, lifting her hoofs daintily from the rough boards.

There was a sudden, sullen glow on Johnson’s face as he took the bellows and blew the fire into a fierce blaze. He laid the iron on the fire and raised the hammer.

Young Green began to talk. He spoke of the dry

THAT OIRL OF JOHNSON^ S.

weather and the hard roads ; he told the news of the town and of the trial that was to come off of a notorious horse thief who had been caught attempting to steal Bess. The blacksmith listened in sullen silence between the blows of the hammer. He asked no questions and made no replies ; apparently he took no interest in the matter.

By and by young Green left him and went up .to the house for a drink. The day was almost threateningly warm. The haze hung dense and blue over the mountain ; it shrouded the sunlight to a faint brazen hue; a low breeze sighed through the pines around the house.

Johnson was not the only silent one that day. His daughter listened mutely to the young man’s conversation. If anything she was even more listless than usual, though a strange color tinged her cheeks as he talked. She spilled the water, too, when she handed him the glass. Her brown eyes were half hidden by their curling lashes, and he could get no slow, quiet glance from them straight into his own as he had the previous time. He left the promised book with her ; he had not forgotten it, he said, but had been unable to take it before. For a moment her face glowed with pleasure and the silken lashes lifted swiftly, but fell ere their eyes could meet. She thanked him in a few simple words in her low, sweet voice ; then her gaze wandered away to the hazy mountain top in the distance, and her face lost all its color as though some thought drove the light from it.

He left in a few minutes, deeply disappointed in her and yet strangely interested and puzzled. Had he mistaken her? Was she incapable of the thought he believed she possessed ? Had she not, after all, the ambition to be more than an untaught village girl ? Did her thought end with the blue line of mountains and the hamlets scattered along their sides ?

She was so apt with replies before ; her eyes were so large and luminous ; her face full of intellect ; her large but perfectly formed mouth was parted with a slow smile that gave a half tender expression to the grave face and betrayed the depth that lay beyond.

Was this silent girl with the listless air the same as the other? Was she but like the other villagers whose lives centered in the tavern and the gossip ? Since first he saw her she had followed him in thought ; not constantly ; he was a man and human ; he had his friends and his social life and his business, which left little time for romance or imagination; but sometimes, sitting alone at his window at night, smoking, the mellow moonlight falling in a glory around him, his gaze strayed to the blue mountain top and his thoughts went out to the girl standing in the low doorway as he had last seen her, the light in whose large eyes reflected the glory of the broad slope of sunlight; her sweet, penetrating voice calling to him with a quiver of fear in it for his safety.