Tabitha's glory

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Carrie Sats Good-bye • 11

II. Good News for Gloriana * 27

Chapter I Carrie Says Good-bye

The sun was setting over Silver Bow; the western sky seemed afire with colors which glowed and faded, shifted and changed, reached out long fingers to touch the white cloud-bank hanging like nightcaps over each mountain peak, then receded into the flaming ball of the sinking sun, only to burst forth again into a more glorious display of splendor, as if loath to let their gorgeous beauty die with the dying day.

Tabitha had climbed to the topmost ridge behind her little desert home — a favorite haunt of hers — and stood silhouetted against the glowing sky as she watched the ever-changing scene, grown so familiar since she had come to live in this little forsaken-looking mining town seven years before. Her thin, dark face and n bright, black eyes were luminous witH gladness, for to her this desert sky was like a picture-book, and she never wearied of watching the wonderful scenes painted there by the hand of the Master Artist. But even as she watched the fading pictures, she kept glancing over her shoulder, down into the little cuplike hollow, already lying in the twilight of early evening, where stood the three buildings which made up that part of town, — her father’s modest cottage, the splendid Carson home, and the dilapidated haunted house still further down the road, — and each time she looked her black eyes grew blacker with anxiety and impatience, and a frown puckered her forehead into a dozen wrinkles. At last, unable to restrain her uneasiness any longer, she exclaimed with savage emphasis, “I don’t see what is keeping her so long! She said she would come — ”

“And I have fulfilled my promise, Kitty Catt,” answered a laughing voice behind her, as two soft, plump arms stole about Tabitha’s neck and turned the flushed, oval face back into the light of the setting sun. “See, here we are, General Sherman and I. Why,

Tabitha Catt! What have you done to yourself? You’re as thin as a toothpick!”

“Carrie Carson!” was the echoing cry, as Tabitha freed herself from the strangling arms only to wrap her own about the sweet, blue-eyed maid hugging her so fiercely.

“Where have you been all this time? And you, old General? You are traitors to your old friend. I have been waiting here for ages and ages, and had just about made up my mind that you weren’t coming at all to-night — ”

“Now, you knew better than that — ”

“But the sun is almost gone, and we were going to watch it set together this last night before we go back to Ivy Hall.”

“I came as soon as I could,” Carrie interrupted, a cloud passing over her gentle face at her companion’s words, and for the first time, Tabitha noticed a suspicious redness about the blue eyes, and caught the sound of a slight quiver in the usually happy voice; and feeling in some way to blame for the trouble, whatever it might be, which had ruffled that serene disposition to the point of tears, she hugged the plump little figure with fiercer tenderness, and whispered contritely, “Never mind anything I said, Carrie. I’m glad enough that you could get away from your company in time to see the after-glow. That is really the prettiest part of the sunset, I think. When the clouds look like a great furnace of fire it always makes me remember that the day is gone and I haven’t finished hundreds of things I meant to do; but the after-glow — that just smooths out the humps and kinks of everything that has gone wrong, and somehow gives me the feeling that to-morrow will be better.”

“Yes, papa says in his funny way that these lovely twilights seem to iron out the wrinkles in the clo’es of day. It sounds just the same as if he meant c-l-o-s-e, but he really intends folks to think it is c-l-o-t-h-e-s. I thought his company never would get through eating this evening, and, of course, it wouldn’t have been proper for me to run away until they left the table, at least. That’s why I am so late. But truly, Pussy, you look dreadfully thin. You never were as fat as me — I mean, as I am, — but you are terribly — peaked. Isn’t that what your Aunt Maria calls it? Have you been sick this summer and never let me know a word about it?”

“No, indeed-y,” laughed Tabitha happily. “I am as gay as a lark myself, but father — ”

“Yes, I knew he was badly hurt. We hated so much to have you leave school to help take care of him. Was it — was it as bad as you expected?” Carrie’s voice had unconsciously grown awed and hushed, for she had a wholesome fear of the tall, stern, unfatherlike man who was Tabitha’s one living parent ; and her heart had often gone out to this motherless little girl who had no one of kin to love her, except the big brother Tom, now away at college.

“Worse,” promptly answered Tabitha, with unexpected cheerfulness, smiling down into the sympathetic face at her side. Then, seeing the puzzled, questioning look in her friend’s eyes, she continued more soberly, and with a shudder of recollection, “It was perfectly terrible, Carrie, — at first. But oh, it did end so beautifully! It’s like a fairy tale. I can’t make it seem really true half the time. Didn’t your father tell you? But no, I begged Tom when he wrote the news to ask your father not to say anything about it to you. I wanted to tell you all myself. At first I was going to write like Tom did, and then we heard that you were coming home early in August, so I waited for that; and when you changed your minds, I — well, I just kept on waiting — ”

“Please don’t keep on waiting any longer,” shrieked Carrie abruptly, hopping up and down in excited anticipation. “I’m just dying to hear what has happened. Did your father — was he — is he — ” She stopped short and her cheeks flamed as she suddenly remembered that she could not ask Tabitha the questions which were trembling on the tip of her tongue, for fear of wounding her friend’s sensitive nature.

But the black-eyed girl seemed to read her very thoughts, and without hesitation completed Carrie’s unfinished sentence. “A real father now? Yes, — not like yours, because he is a different man; but oh, Carrie, he is a darling! I never was so happy in all my life! Think of having a father like other girls! One who cares about your being his little girl, who loves you and kisses you every time he comes home or goes away — really kisses you!

And wants you to sit on his knee, and asks you what kind of clothes you would like, and how you’re going to have your dresses made, and is interested in whatever you do!”

Briefly she related the happenings of that busy summer, about her father’s delirium, of his unwillingness to let anyone but her minister to his wants, of the coming of Decker Simmons just when they were beginning to give up hope, of the gold piece found in the crack of the floor, and of her father’s changed attitude when the fever had burned out.

“And oh, Carrie,” she finished in tones of ecstasy, “he said Tom and I might change our names!”

“Tabitha! How perfectly lovely! Now you can be Theodora Gabrielle for sure.”

Tabitha smiled reminiscently; but every trace of bitterness was gone from her heart as she recalled that darkest of dark days when in her childish longing for the love denied her in her home, she had changed her name without her father’s knowledge, and what direful punishment it had brought.

“Is that what you will call yourself now?” persisted Carrie, as Tabitha sat silent, staring meditatively into the darkening valley below.

“No”

Carrie was startled at the brief but decisive reply. “What, then?”

“Just Tabitha Catt.”

“Oh!” For a moment it seemed unbelievable that anyone who hated her name with the ferocity Tabitha had always displayed would still hold to that obnoxious title when she had the privilege of discarding it. So Carrie was silent. Then she shyly ventured, “And Tom?”

“Is Tom still.”

“For all time?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think you will ever wish you had changed?”

Slowly Tabitha shook her head.

“But why? I always thought you’d change it in a minute if you ever got a chance.”

“So did I until I got the chance.”

“And then you didn’t do it!”

“It — it — seems so queer. I can’t understand why — ”

Suddenly Tabitha wheeled, caught Carrie by both shoulders and looked searchingly into the sweet blue eyes as she demanded with her old-time fierceness, “Would you love me any more if my name was Theodora Gabrielle, or Marguerite, or — or Chrystobel?”

“You know I wouldn’t. I couldn’t, Puss!”

“Would your father?”

“No. Nobody would.”

“That’s what Tom and I decided, too, when we came to think it over. So we kept our old names. They are not as pretty as some other people’s, but, after all, it isn’t one’s name that counts in this world.”

She said this in such sage tones that even Tom would have smiled had he heard her, but Carrie thought it perfectly splendid of her chum to take such a stand after all the unhappiness the hateful name had caused her, and seizing the black head scarcely visible now in the gathering night, she hugged it with such vim that both girls were nearly unseated. But her action recalled them to their surroundings, and as they recovered their balance with much laughter, Tabitha sighed regretfully, “Well, I suppose we must be going,

Carrie. The trail will soon be too faint to follow, and I have no hankering for getting tangled up in the mesquite on the way down. Wave good-bye to our mountains, Carrie, it’s the last time we will see them for months. Think of it! At this time to-morrow night we will be getting settled once more in Ivy Hall — ”

“I won’t.”

*‘What?” The mournful note in Carrie’s voice stopped Tabitha in her tracks as she was cautiously picking her way down the rough mountain side, and she gripped the girl savagely by the shoulders, as she tried to make up her mind whether or not she had heard aright, for the darkness had descended swiftly over the desert and she could no longer read her companion’s face. “What did you say?”

“I won’t be getting settled at Ivy Hall. I’m not going back there this year.”

“Carrie! You are fooling!”

“Do I sound like it?” demanded Carrie with a reproachful sob.

“No, dear. I’m sorry I said that,” cried Tabitha remorsefully, gathering the unhappy figure in her arms as they stumbled over the rocks, having hopelessly lost the trail in the excitement of the moment. “I didn’t mean a word of it, but you took me so by surprise! Why aren’t you going back? You never hinted a word of such a thing in any of your letters. I am not the only one who has had secrets. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I never knew myself until to-night,” sobbed Carrie, giving way to her tears. “Papa has thought for some weeks that maybe I couldn’t go back this year, but he hoped things would turn out all right, so neither he nor mamma said anything to me about it until to-day, when they made certain that he had to go back East again.”

“But I don’t see what that has to do with your returning to Ivy Hall. He often takes trips like that.”

“He’s to be gone a whole year this time, and mamma won’t listen to his going for so long unless she can be with him.”

“Even then you would be all right at Ivy Hall.”

“Yes, I s’pose I would,” Carrie answered hesitatingly. “But it would be dreadful lonesome knowing that papa and mamma weren’t at Silver Bow where I could reach them in a day. Besides, they won’t leave me for a whole year, either. I’ve got to go with them, Pussy.”

“Oh, dear!” With a great wail of woe at thought of separation from this boon companion again, Tabitha forgot the dignity of her fifteen years, and cast herself flat among the rocks just as she had done hundreds of times before, to sob out her grief and despair on the sympathetic desert bosom. But she had miscalculated the place, and instead of finding the hard rocks beneath her as she had expected, she landed plump in the middle of a huge mesquite bush, and her exclamation of self-pity changed to groans of genuine pain, as the cruel thorns tore her arms and scratched her face. Fortunately, she was wearing a heavy duck suit which did not catch and cling to the ugly branches as almost any other material would have done, and with Carrie’s help she was soon able to free herself from her predicament.

But the accident was effectual in turning her thoughts, and when she stood once more by Carrie’s side, carefully searching a path down the treacherous mountain, she had taken up her role of comforter again, and was trying to speak words of cheer to the blue-eyed maid who wanted to return with her mates to Ivy Hall, and yet could not bear the thought of being separated from her loved ones for a whole long year. And Carrie was comforted.

“You are such a darling,” she sighed, snuggling closer to Tabitha, as they reached the familiar valley path, and strolled slowly along in the darkness toward the twinkling lights of home. “I knew you would care, but I never thought it would mean so much to you, Puss. I — I was afraid you were beginning to like Chrystobel better — ”

“Carrie Carson, you little wretch! Are you jealous?”

“But you were with her so much,” Carrie defended.

“Because I couldn’t be with you at all hardly. Cassandra was always poking in, and you listened to her plans instead of paying attention to the rest of us.”

“Yes,” sighed Carrie regretfully. “But it was the easiest way to get along with Cassandra, Puss. She never would let up until I gave in and she had her own way. After all, I’m glad I don’t have to room with her this year. I am to have a tutor all of my own to go with us wherever we go. But I’ll always be wondering what you girls are doing at Ivy Hall, and envying you the larks you are sure to have. How many of the old girls do you suppose will be back this fall? Bertha Peck won’t, because her folks are going to Europe and she will travel with them for a year at least. She would have graduated next June, too. It seems too bad to lose this last year, doesn’t it? Mercedes and Cassandra at least will have new room-mates. Isn’t it exciting to think out beforehand what the new girls will look like — ”

“And what their names will be, and then find them altogether different from your dreams,” added Tabitha. “But I am awfully glad I don’t have Cassandra for a room-mate, Carrie. I don’t see how you got along with her as beautifully as you did. I am sure I should have shaken all her teeth out the first week, if I’d had to room with her. Chrystobel was bad enough until we got acquainted, but

Cassandra — ” Words failed her, and she finished her sentence with a shrug of her shoulders so expressive that Carrie laughed aloud, and said soothingly,

“Never mind. Pussy Catt. By next year the new building ought to be finished, so the smaller girls will be in the other court, and we will have dear old Ivy Hall all to ourselves. Won’t that be splendid?”

“Will you go back next fall?”

“Um-hm. Papa promised me for sure that I could. Then maybe you and I can have a room together. Chrystobel ought to be willing to give you up to me by that time if she has you two whole years, don’t you think?”

“It would be too good to be true, Carrie. I never plan on having you to myself but something comes up to interfere. You went to Ivy Hall a whole year before I did, and then we had to pair off with other girls last year. This summer, when I wanted to spend the vacation with you, dad got hurt and you went away, and now, when I was positive we were both going back to Ivy Hall to-morrow, you say you’re going East again. I believe we are hoodooed!”

“Oh, no, we’re not! We will room together yet — you see! It’s just: —

‘Look bravely up into the sky,

And be content with knowing That God wished for a buttercup Just here, where you are growing.’ ”

“You have stolen my motto.”

“No — just shared it, Puss. Papa says it is a pretty good one or it wouldn’t have helped you so much.”

“Did he say that?”

“Just this evening when I cried because I couldn’t go back to Ivy Hall with you.”

“Then I will surely try harder than ever. Tom said I was winning my Civil War splendidly, but I thought he was only trying to encourage me when I get so disgusted at failing. I’ve got a perfectly awful temper yet! Here we are, Carrie! And there is your father out looking for you. Good-night! I’ll see you in the morning, so there’s no need to say good-bye now.”

With a last long hug the two girls parted, two doors slammed shut behind them, and night descended upon Silver Bow.

Chapter II Good News For Gloriana

“ ‘Do your best and leave the rest !

What’s the use of worry?

Firm endeavor stands the test More than haste and hurry.

Rich rewards will come to him Who works on with smiling vim/ ”

warbled a high, sweet, plaintive voice, as its owner, ragged, patched and tousled, carefully lowered herself out of the great fig tree where she was perched, picked up her crutches, adjusted her basket of ripe, luscious fruit, and hobbled rapidly down the path toward the little town of Manchester, nestling among the foothills of the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains.

She was not a pretty child. Indeed, a casual observer would have called her decidedly homely, for her face was generously sprinkled with freckles, her nose was inclined to be a pug, her mouth was too large and straight, and her abundant red hair was drawn 27 tightly back from a low forehead, and hung in a long, untidy braid down her back, accentuating the plainness and irregularity of her features. Yet it was a strong face in spite of its faults, and her large, questioning gray eyes were really lovely ; but of this one beauty point the child was unaware.

Left an orphan before she was seven years old, she had been shifted from one unwilling neighbor to another until old Granny Conover had taken pity on the lonely, unhappy, homeless little waif and opened her door to the crippled child, who was doubly unwelcome to the Manchester wives because of her deformity. Granny Conover was the widow of an old soldier, and aside from the pitifully small pension she received from the government each month, her income depended solely upon the quantity of vegetables and fruit she could sell from her tiny garden; so the adoption of another member into the little family, which, besides the withered, stoop-shouldered, kindly old mistress, consisted of Tipsy, the earless cat, Kinks, the three-legged dog, and Bunter, a nanny goat of ancient lineage, meant still closer planning and scrimping, and it was i already a serious problem with the brave old soul how to make both ends meet.

But Gloriana Holliday, the red-haired cripple girl, had known only sharp, grudging words for so long that she was quick to appreciate genuine good-fellowship and to value the self-sacrifice of this old grandmother, whose meager fortune was scarcely enough to keep one body from want. And though handicapped by her deformity, she threw herself body and soul into the task of helping this good saint provide for her family of castaways, with such success that Granny Conover hardly missed from her little hoard the mite it took to feed and clothe the newcomer.

During the long summer days she picked berries for neighboring ranchers, peddled vegetables from Granny’s garden, scoured the surrounding country for a certain wild plum which the housewives liked for jelly, gathered and sold the fruit from their own little orchard, which consisted of three immense fig, one pomegranate and five peach trees, and helped the more kindly disposed women with their preserving, for her fingers were long and nimble, and she had learned to do her tasks with surprising accuracy and swiftness for one so young.

In the winter, when the heavy rains and chill winds from the mountains made all these things impossible, it was harder to gather up the pennies, especially as the best part of the day must be spent in the schoolroom. But she did her best, and had the keen satisfaction of knowing that she was at least not an added burden to the old dame who had given her the first home she had ever known since her parents had left her an orphan at the mercy of the cold, busy world.

Naturally a quiet, reserved, shy little maid, she lived much in a world of her own, for the neighborhood children were brought up to regard her as a pauper, and they never lost an opportunity to make her feel their disdain. Then, too, Granny Conover was considered “queer, 55 and strange stories circulated by busybody gossips found root in many superstitious minds ; so little by little, the odd couple on the hill were exiled from village society.

But if the fairies had denied Gloriana beauty, they had given her the voice of a bird.

as well as a decided talent for drawing, and she early formed the habit of comforting herself by these gifts when the harsh words and jeering taunts of her thoughtless mates made her heart ache with misery and despair. In school she was quick to learn, and took secret satisfaction in going ahead of the other scholars, though the fact that she ranked first in all her studies did not win her any more friends, but only served to make the pupils of Manchester school more hateful in their treatment of the ragged orphan maid.

All these thoughts were passing through the crippled girl’s mind as she hobbled down the brown, dry hillside with the basket of figs she was to deliver to Mrs. Cates, the postmaster’s wife; and she was wistfully wishing, as she had wished a thousand times before, that she had the flower-like face and beautiful curls of Marie Cates, or the tall, lithe figure of Genevieve Reynolds, or the pretty clothes of Phyllis Moore, the mayor’s daughter.

“Perhaps if I had one of them, folks wouldn’t hate me so,” she sighed. “I know I am ugly — homely, but maybe if I had some nice new dresses like Phyllis, I’d look different and folks wouldn’t mind my being lame. Maybe they’d invite me to their parties and be sorry if I couldn’t go to their picnics. Maybe they’d feel glad that I always stand first in my classes and not say I am a stuck-up prig of a pauper. I wonder why some folks are liked and others are made fun of all the time.”

Suddenly the words of Granny Conover’s favorite sermonette came lilting through her brain again, and once more she began warbling the refrain:

“ ‘Do your best and leave the rest !

What’s the use of worry ?’ ”

“No use,” jeered a voice at her elbow, and the impish face of one of her tormentors was thrust over her shoulder as the boy jerked maliciously at the basket she carried and asked insinuatingly, “What will you give me for something I’ve got?”

“Nothing,” she answered shortly, remembering certain mean tricks he was in the habit of playing not only on herself but on all the more timid girls.

“But I’ve got something for you.”

“Yes, you have! Do you expect me to believe that? I know you! I don’t eare for your old horned toads or water snakes, thank you. And you can keep all your slimy snails and green frogs and horrid spiders; or if you’ve got a bunch of cactus thorns in your hand, just punch yourself. ’Twill do you good ! Go along and mind your own business ; I’m not molesting you.”

“All right, old girl, but maybe you’ll sing another tune when I keep it myself. Mrs. Cates asked me to deliver it at Granny Conover’s, but it’s addressed to you and if you don’t want it, I s’pose there is nothing to do but keep it myself.”

He fished an envelope, much the worse for having come in contact with his grimy hands, out of his pocket ; and held it tantalizingly before Gloriana’s eyes, just long enough for her to see that it was really addressed to her, then stuffed it back into his coat and grinned derisively, triumphantly, at the enraged face of the girl.

“What business did Mrs. Cates have in giving you my letter?” she exploded at last. “She knew I would be down to her house this very afternoon, and could have got it myself.

Give me that envelope, Charlie Watts, this minute!”

“Couldn’t think of it, Glorious Holliday,” he answered with an aggravating swagger which made the angry Gloriana long to rap him over the head with one of her crutches. “Not for less’n a dozen of the biggest, ripest figs you’ve got there in your basket. Is it a go?”

“No, it ain’t!” she declared with heat. “That letter is mine and you’ve no right keeping it.”

“Twelve figs or no letter.”

“No figs and one letter!”

“That’s about the size of it if you don’t fork over the figs,” he replied impudently, “only — I keep the letter.”

“I’ll report you to Mrs. Cates.”

“Go ahead. She went to Los Angeles about fifteen minutes ago and won’t be back for a week.”

“I’ll tell the postmaster himself!”

“Huh! He’ll believe a lot you say, you turnip-nose, carrot-head — ”

His sentence was never finished, for with an inarticulate gasp of rage, Gloriana swung one

TABXTHA’S GLORY crutch high over her head and swept him off his feet before he could divine her intention. But the effort was too much for her strength, and losing her balance, she, too, fell to the ground, just as her surprised and enraged victim was struggling to his feet, with fire in his eye. Forgetting her crippled condition and the fact that he was much the stronger, he grappled with her, and the two rolled over and over on the brown hillside, upsetting the basket of figs and crushing the soft fruit in the dirt, while arms and legs thrashed wildly in the air.

Gloriana was soon winded, but in the struggle she had managed somehow to snatch the precious letter, now crumpled and torn almost beyond recognition, and tucked it down the neck of her frock without his seeing it. After that he could have pummeled the life out of her and she would never have made a sound. Fortunately for her, he soon wearied of the uneven battle, ashamed, perhaps, that he had tackled a girl and she a cripple. At any rate, he desisted, and with a last resounding slap across the freckled face half smothered in the dust, he rose to his feet, kicked the empty basket further down the hill, and strode off toward town after one parting taunt.

“You’ll hit me again, will you, smarty? It doesn’t pay to monkey with yours truly. Next time perhaps you will give me a dozen figs when I ask for them and then you won’t be out a whole basketful as well as your precious letter. Better hike for the post-office and tattle now, you Irish red-head, for you will never see that letter again.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, you figless bully,” muttered the bloody Gloriana under her breath, as she slowly struggled to her feet, wiped her bleeding nose and surveyed the hopeless wreck of her basket of fruit. “I only wish I had hit you twice as hard. Oh, dear, not a single fig left fit to eat, and that was sixty cents’ worth! If I were a boy he never would dare to tackle me. Sixty cents gone at one smash ! What will Granny think ? I s’pose he is tickled to death at the good job he did.” And dropping down on the brown stubble once more, she sobbed despairingly, forgetting all about her bruised head and tingling hands in the thought of the sixty cents lost because she had refused to be bullied.

“Was there ever another little girl as homefy and unhappy as I am?” she asked herself over and over again. “Was there ever one tormented and made fun of like I am? Oh, if I could just go away somewhere where folks didn’t know me and think me a nuisance ! I ’most wish the Manchester aldermen had sent me to an orphan asylum like they were going to do when Granny Conover took me in. Then maybe I’d have been adopted by this time — or perhaps it is only pretty children that people want to adapt. Why did I have to be so homely?”