Ladybird (16 page)

Most of the people who came looked old and tired, although there were a few little children. Perhaps it was the shadows of the weird candlelight and the high, smoky kerosene beacon overhead that made them all look so scared and sad.

Three women came in together and a little, little boy. Two more and a man. A little girl and her father. Then some more men—three of them. You could hear the thud of their horses’ feet as they arrived, or the rattling of old sun-warped wheels on the hard earth. They seemed to steal almost furtively in and slide into their seats. Finally the place was half full. Fraley counted them as they came, until thirty-nine had arrived. She had never seen so many people together in her life. But as each man came, she shrank back farther into the shadow and scanned him anxiously. She was always looking for Brand or Pete or Pierce. Yet none of them would be likely to come to a prayer meeting unless they came for some evil purpose. And, as each new man entered, she quickly glanced from him to the young man sitting up by the table in front. He was her friend; he would protect her, she felt sure, in case anyone should come after her.

So, at last, she settled back into comparative comfort to enjoy what was going on. It was all wonderful to her.

There was a thing up near the table that looked like a brown box, and presently a woman that looked younger than the rest came up and opened its lid and sat down in front of it. There seemed to be a lot of little white and black stripes inside, and Fraley wondered what it could be. There was a pile of books on the top of one of the front desks, and the old man who rang the bell took them and distributed them. Fraley accepted hers wonderingly and puzzled over the strange lines with dots on them that went between the text.

The young missionary was whispering now with the woman who sat in front of the box and looking through one of the books. Presently he announced that they would sing number ninety-three. Everybody opened the books and fluttered the leaves through, and Fraley opened hers and found there were numbers on each page. She had no trouble in finding the right one. Then a strange sound broke the stillness. The woman at the box was moving her fingers up and down the black and white stripes and making the sounds, and it was a tune a tune Fraley’s mother used to sing to her sometimes when they were very happy together, all alone:

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hid myself in Thee.”

Why, that was like the place in the rock she had hidden behind! She had not thought of it then, for her mother had not sung the song for a long time.

And this must be a hymnbook she was holding. The box was some kind of musical instrument, perhaps a piano or an organ. Her mother used to play the piano. She had told her about that, and Fraley had always had a longing to play one sometime.

She joined her flutelike voice to the tide of dragging song that was sweeping around the little log schoolhouse, and the hymn rose and soared as if a million songbirds had suddenly joined the company. Tired old voices rose to the key and felt thrilled with the music, because this sweet, new voice had broken into their worship. The young man at the desk heard and looked up in pleased surprise, presently adding a fine baritone, and the little schoolhouse rang with the old, old song. Flickering candles, smoking lamp, breath of the pines drifting in, weird shadows in dusty corners, sad, tired, sin-sick souls, one sorrowful lonely child of God, and one astonished, flabbergasted man of the world trying to do something he did not in the least understand!

When they had sung three songs, the young man stood up. He looked around on the people, and the light from the candle that stood on the table before him flickered over his face and made him look like a nice, shy, little boy standing there facing into the shadowy schoolroom.

“Friends,” he said, looking around on them with his engaging smile, “I’m not the minister you expected here tonight. He’s very sick in the hospital, back east, having an operation for appendicitis. I’m just the man that picked him up on the street and carried him to the hospital, and I promised him I’d see that somebody came out here to take his place. He wouldn’t go under the operation till I’d promised. He said he had given his word that he would be here without fail. I tried to get somebody else to come that knew how, but I couldn’t, so here I am. But it’s a new job for me, and you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t do it very well. Perhaps you’ll all help me.”

Then he opened Fraley’s cotton-covered Bible and began to read at the beginning of the story of Elijah.

The room was very still as he finished with the touch of the angel’s hand on Elijah’s shoulder, bidding him rise and eat and go forward. The young man closed the Bible and looked at his strange audience, half bewildered for a moment; then he said, as if it came right out of his heart, “My friends, I guess there is something in this story that will do us all good tonight. I know it has made me think a lot. Suppose we each one think about it. Now I wonder if anybody else has anything to say?”

Back in the corner by the door, the tall, thin man rose and began to pray, and then another and another of the old men who looked like gnarled sticks but had kindly eyes followed him. A very old man leaning on a stick testified that he had served the Lord seventy years and found joy in doing it, and then a little tired-looking woman asked for a hymn, and so the meeting unrolled itself until the young leader sat in amazement and watched.

The climax came when one man prayed “for our young brother who has brought us the Word of God tonight,” and Fraley thought she saw her missionary man brush away a tear as he rose when that prayer was over.

“Well, friends, I guess God heard all those prayers,” he said. “I sure feel I’ve got something out of it.”

They lingered after the closing hymn to shake hands with the new leader and with the little stranger back by the door, and their kindly welcome seemed lovely to the girl.

She looked back wistfully at the long, low, shadowy room as she stepped out. It would always be a sweet memory to her—the hour spent there in the candle-glow.

Out in the starlight, the sky seemed to stoop lower, as if God were very near.

The tall man padlocked the schoolhouse door, and one by one the worshippers mounted their horses or climbed into the shaky wagons and disappeared into the darkness. Fraley was left standing on the steps while the young man went for the horse.

When they were mounted again and on their way, he said gravely, “Well, you had the right dope, little girl. I guess that service got by, didn’t it?”

“It was wonderful!” said Fraley, starry eyed.

“Oh, I don’t think that,” he answered seriously, “but I can see there is a lot more in it than I ever thought there was. Jove! Think of that old man, poor and lame and almost blind, saying he’s happy! But now, little sister,” he said, bringing his attention back to Fraley, “we’ve got to make some plans for you.”

“Oh,” said Fraley, suddenly brought back to earth, “you mustn’t take any more trouble with me. I’ve been thinking about that. If you’ll let me down at your ranch house and just tell me the way the road goes, I’ll keep right on tonight. I feel rested now, and I mustn’t waste any more time.”

“Look here, little tree-lady!” said the young man, pulling the horse up short and leaning around where he could look at her. “I thought we settled that thing long ago. You are not going to be left to wander the darkness alone! Understand that? I was made a man so I could protect woman, and I’m going to do it! And from all they told me at the ranch today, I know this region around here is no fit place for you, even in the daytime, let alone night. So that’s that! Do you understand?”

“But…” said Fraley, a worried pucker between her brows.

“No buts, please. I’ve got a plan. Listen to me. First, tell me a thing or two. Why are you traveling alone like this? You know you haven’t explained yourself at all. Beyond the fact that you’re a sort of a lady-tramp bound ultimately for New York, I know nothing at all about you. Don’t you think I have a right to an explanation? Can’t you trust me?”

W
hat do you want to know?” asked Fraley almost sadly, suddenly reminded of her sorrowful past.

“Where did you come from, where are your people, and where are you going?” asked the young man. “You may trust me absolutely. If there is something you want kept secret, I’ll be as mum as an oyster, if you know what that is.”

“I’ve never had one,” said Fraley smiling, “but my mother had.”

“Well, an oyster never tells anything,” said the young man solemnly, and Fraley suddenly laughed.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, “but it’s not a happy story. I lived in a cabin on a mountain, and I’ve hardly ever been away from there. A little while ago my father was killed, and the men that were with my father raising cattle were not good men. My mother was sick, and before she died she told me to get away as quick as I could. She had a brother in New York, and I am going to find him.”

“But why did you start out to walk? Do you know how far it is to New York?”

“I know it seems very far,” she said with a sigh, “but if I keep on I’ll get there someday, I guess.”

“You poor little ladybird,” said the young man with his voice full of tenderness. “But tell me, why did you not take the train? If you didn’t have money, surely some of your friends would have loaned you some—”

“We hadn’t any friends,” said Fraley gravely.

“No friends? Well but why, surely your father’s friends the men you spoke of even if you didn’t like them, they aren’t inhuman, are they?”

“I think perhaps they are,” said the girl seriously. “They wouldn’t have let me go if they had known. They wanted me to stay and cook for them. They…” The girl’s voice shook, and her slender shoulders quivered at the memory. “They came home drunk and I heard them talking. They were
terrible!
I was afraid, and I got out of the window and ran away. I meant to get gone before they came back, but I couldn’t bear to leave my mother lying there all alone, dead. She told me to go without waiting, but they came sooner than I thought ”

“You poor kid!” said the young man, his own voice full of feeling. He felt a great longing to comfort her somehow, yet he laid no finger upon her. She was a little, pure soul like an angel.

“You poor brave little kid! Didn’t they find out you had gone?”

“Yes, pretty soon they broke down the door and got in and found me gone. I could hear them break it as I ran. They came after me, and they shot Larcha—”

“Who is Larcha?”

“My dear dog. He was going with me, and he rushed at them to keep them from finding me. He threw them off the trail.”

“But where were you?”

“Up in my big pine tree.”

“Up a tree! Oh, so that wasn’t the first time you shinned up a tree when you were frightened. Do you always go up a tree when you see a man coming?”

“There was nowhere else to go.”

“You poor dear little kid!”

Little by little he drew from her the whole tale of her journey thus far.

“I don’t wonder you were afraid of me!” he said when she had finished the tale. “You are a wonderful brave little kid. And now, it seems to me you have done this bravery act to a finish and it’s high time someone took care of you. How would you like to stay at the ranch house where I board for a little while till you can write to these friends of yours to come after you?”

“Oh no!” said Fraley. “I must get away. You don’t know what those men are. They would find out. They may know even now about where I am, and they would find a way to get a hold of me.”

“Let them come on,” said the young man. “I’d just like to wring their necks for them.”

“Oh no!” said Fraley with fright in her voice. “No, you must never go near them. Never! They would kill you as soon as they would kill a dog. They don’t care for anything. They would get behind you in the dark, and nobody would ever know where you were. My father…”

“You think they killed your father?” he asked, looking at her keenly.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think my mother thought so. Oh, promise me you won’t ever have anything to do with them. Please, please, let me get down now and go away somewhere in the dark! They must not ever know that you were kind to me, or your life won’t be safe.”

“Now, look here, ladybird; calm yourself. If you are so determined to go away, I’ll see you safe to somewhere in the morning, and I’ll make good and sure that it is safe, too. But tonight you ride with me to the ranch and sleep in a real bed. You needn’t worry about me. I can kid the eyeteeth out of any man that ever walked the earth or shot a gun if I try. In fact, I’ve shot guns, too, over in France, and I know how. I’m not afraid, and I won’t run any risks. You needn’t worry about that.”

“You promise that?”

“I sure do. And now listen, I’ve been thinking. I have a whole perfectly good return trip ticket to New York. I bought it thinking I was going right back. I meant to telegraph and get somebody else to take this job out here before another service came due. But after tonight, I’ve a notion to stick it out, at least till somebody else turns up that can do it better than I. So there’s my ticket going to waste. It’s only good for five days, and if you begin to use it tomorrow morning it will take you on the train to New York. How about it? Will that help any?”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” said Fraley. “But would you let me pay you for it sometime when I have earned some money?”

“Why, if that’s necessary to your peace of mind, sister, perhaps I would, but it isn’t in the least necessary. You see, the ticket is no good to me if I stay here awhile, and you might as well use it.”

By the time he had reached the ranch house, he had convinced her that the ticket really needed to be used and she was doing him service to ride on it, and she drew a long breath of relief.

“All right, ladybird, that’s settled. And now, I want you to do something for me. When you get to New York, just as soon as it is at all convenient for you, I want you to go to a bookstore and buy me a Bible. I’ll give you some money to pay for it. I want a very nice Bible, with a soft leather cover, the kind a minister ought to have. Will you remember? You see, I haven’t any friends back home just now that I care to have pick me out a Bible; they wouldn’t understand. It needs somebody who loves it to pick it out, I imagine. Can you do that?”