Ladybird (2 page)

“It’s no one,” she said, laying her firm young hand on the cold brow. “Now, Mother, can’t you rest a little? You’ve talked too much.”

“No, no,” protested the sick woman, “the time is going. I must finish! Fraley, go look behind the loose board under your bed. There’s a bag there. Bring it! I want to show you. Quick!”

Fraley came back with a bundle of gray woolen cloth, which she examined wonderingly.

“I made it from your father’s old coat,” explained the mother eagerly. “It’s some worn, and there’s a hole or two I had to darn, but it will be better than nothing.”

“But what is it for, Mother?” asked the girl, puzzled.

“It’s a traveling bag for you when you start. It’s all packed. See! I washed and mended your other things and made a little best dress for you out of my old black satin one that had been put away in the hole under the floor since before you were born. It may not be in fashion now but it’s the best I could do. I cut it out when you were asleep and sewed it while you gathered wood for the fire.”

“Oh, Mother!” burst forth the girl with uncontrollable tears, “I shan’t ever need a wedding dress. I don’t
want
a wedding dress. I hate men! I hate the sight of them all. My father never made you happy. All the men around here only curse and get drunk and swear. I shall never get married!”

“I’m sorry, dear child; you should never have known all—this—sin, this terror—Oh, I dreamed I’d get you out of this—into a clean world someday! But I’ve failed! There
are
good men—!”

Fraley set her lips but said nothing. She doubted that there were good men.

“Fraley, we must hurry! My strength is
going
fast.”

“Don’t talk, Mother! Please.”

“But I must! Look in the bag, child. I’ve put the old Book there. It’s almost worn out, but I’ve sewed it in a cloth cover. Fraley, you’ll stick to the old Book?”

“Yes, Mother, I promise. I’ll never let anybody take it from me!”

“But if it should be lost or stolen, Fraley, you’ve much of it in your heart. You’ll never forsake it, Fraley?”

“Never, Mother. I promise,” said the girl solemnly.

“Well, then I’m satisfied,” sighed the mother, closing her eyes. “Now, child, hide the bag again. Everything is there I could give you. Even your father’s picture and mine when we were married, and a few papers I’ve kept. Put them away, and come back. I want to tell you what I’ve never told you before.”

Fraley obeyed, trembling at what revelation might be coming.

“Come closer, child, I’m short of breath again. And I must tell—I should have told before!”

Fraley held her mother’s hand closer in sympathy.

“Child, I ran away from that home and got married. I’ve never seen nor heard from any of my own since…” There was a great sob like a gasp at the end of the words.

“Oh, Mother!” gasped the girl in wonder and sorrow. “Oh, Mother, if you’d only told me, I might have helped you more!”

“Fraley darling, you have been everything. You have been wonderful! You have been my world my life. Oh, if I could take you with me where I am going now. But you’ll
come?
You’ll be
sure
and come?”

“Yes, I’ll come! That will be
everything
for me, Mother.”

“But I must hurry on.”

“Mother, did you have”—the girl hesitated, almost shyly—“did you have a mother like you? You told me once my grandmother was dead. Was she dead when you went?”

“Yes, child. She had been gone a year. You think I would not have gone if she had been there? Well perhaps. I do not know. I was young and headstrong. Even before she went she warned me against Angus MacPherson. But I did not listen! Perhaps she worried herself into the grave about me. While she lived I did not go with him
much
. But she knew where my heart was turning. I was mad with impatience to be out like other girls.”

Fraley listened as to a fairy tale.
Her mother
, young and wild like that!

“Angus was young and handsome. He had dark curls and a cleft in his chin and he was very much in love with me then—No, child, you mustn’t look like
that
. You mustn’t think hard of
him!
He was all right always till he took to drink—”

“He didn’t have to drink, Mother,” said the fierce young voice. “He must have known what drink was.”

“Well child, it came little by little. You don’t understand. He never meant to be like that, not when he started. He was always wild and independent. He didn’t care what folks thought of him, but he wasn’t bad. Not bad! And when he came and told me he was in a hole someone had framed him up to a life in the penitentiary to cover a gang’s doings and that there wasn’t anything for him but to disappear forever I believed him. I believe him yet, Fraley! He didn’t do the robbing; he didn’t forge the check. There’s all the papers in the bag there to prove it. But he wouldn’t go back on one fellow who had been innocent. If he got free and told the truth the other boy would have to bear it and he had a sick old mother. He was like that, Fraley, your father was. He wouldn’t go back on someone who had been his friend.”

“But he went back
on you!”
said the fierce young voice again. “He brought you out away from everybody that loved you and then he treated you”—the girl’s voice broke in a sob of indignation.

“Not then, child,” pleaded the mother’s voice. “He was tender and loving, but he put it up to me! It was either go with him then or never see him again. Fraley, I loved him!”

“Don’t mind me, Mother,” said the girl, struggling for control of her feelings. She could remember the cruel blows he had given the frail mother. She could remember so many things!

“It was the drink that did it,” pleaded the mother, reading the thoughts of the sensitive girl and struggling for breath as a fit of coughing seized her.

Their old dog trotted in from his wanderings after the cow, snuffed around the cot lovingly, and lay down with a soft thud of his paws on the bare floor. Fraley put the tin cup of water to her mother’s lips again, and after a time she rallied.

“I must hurry!” she gasped as she lay back on the pillow. “I can’t stand many more like that!”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” begged the girl. “What difference will it make? I love you, anyway, and I don’t care anything about all the rest. It’s you you—I want. I can’t bear to see you suffer!”

“No, child”—the feeble hand lifted just the slightest in protest—“let me finish!”

Fraley’s answer was a soft hand on the thin gray hair around her mother’s temples.

“Go on, Mother dear,” she breathed softly.

“My father was a stern man, especially since my mother’s death—” The sick woman whispered the story with the greatest difficulty. “He had said—if I—married—Angus—I need never—come back.”

The old dog heaved a deep sigh as if he, too, were listening.

The sick woman paused for breath then went on, her words very low.

“That night I slipped out—of the house—when he—was asleep. We were married in a little out of the way church—I pasted the marriage certificate and license—into the Bible—You’ll find it—” She paused as if her task were almost done then hurried on. “When—we got out here—we found—this was a place of—outlaws.”

“Outlaws!” said Fraley, startled. “What does that mean?”

“It means—that every man for miles around—has committed some crime—and is afraid—to go back—where he—came from.”

Fraley turned her startled eyes toward the open door and her faraway mountains.

“Was—my—father—” she faltered at last.

“No! No! I told you he was innocent—”

“Why didn’t he get away then?”

“He couldn’t—child—even if he had had money—which he hadn’t—not a cent. The men here wouldn’t let him go. They would have shot us all first! Your father—knew too much. There were—too many—notorious criminals on this mountain. There—wouldn’t have been—a chance for the three of us—You see—we didn’t find it all out—not till after you came. You were five months old—the day—your father—told me.”

A chill hand seemed to be clutching the girl’s throat as she stared unseeingly at the spot of sunshine on the floor beside the old brown dog.

“We tried—to think of some way—but your father—knew too much. He’d been out with the other men—rustling cattle—He’d have been implicated with them in their crime—of course. At first he didn’t understand. At first he thought it was cattle that belonged to them. He was green, you know, and didn’t understand. The man who brought him out here had made great promises. He had expected to go back rich—someday. I had thought how proud I would be to show my father I had been right about Angus. I thought he would—be a—successful man and we would go home—rich!”

The old dog stirred and snapped at a bug that crept in the doorway, and the sick woman looked around with a start.

“It’s all right, Mother, no one is coming,” said the girl with a furtive look out the door.

The mother struggled on with her story. “When your father—found out, when he saw he, too, had been stealing, and there was no hope—to get away—it seemed he just gave up—and let go. He said we had to live—and there was no other—way. He had always been wild—you know—and it seemed as though—he kind of got used to things—and fitted right in with the others after a while. When I cried and blamed him—then he took to drinking hard—and after—that—he didn’t care, though sometimes he was—very fond—of you. But when he got liquor, then he didn’t care.”

“Drinking didn’t make it any better!” said the fierce young voice.

“No—it didn’t,” went on the dreary voice. ”No—and then he brought the men—here. I couldn’t help it—I tried. But I saw they had some kind—of a hold—on him. He was
afraid!”

The dog made a quick dash out the door after a rabbit that had shot by, and the woman stopped and looked up sharply.

“Listen!” she said, gripping the firm young hand in an icy clasp. “I must say the rest quick!” She was half lifted from her pillow with her frightened eyes turned toward the door. “I might go—or they might come—any minute now. Listen! I had a brother. He went to New York. He was Robert Fraley. You must find him! He loved me. Angus had people, too, but they were ashamed of him. They were rich but it’s all written down. You must get out of here at once. Promise me! I can’t die till you promise.”

“I promise!”

“Promise you won’t wait, not even for any burying.”

“But, Mother!”

“No ‘but,’ Fraley! They’ll bury me deep all right, don’t worry. They’ll want me out of their sight and mind. Many’s the time I’ve told them about the wrath of God—Oh I know they’ve had me in their power since I was sick. I had to shut up. But when I’m gone they’ll take it out on you! Fraley, my girl, they can’t hurt my dead body. No matter what happens God will know how to find it again at the resurrection. But they can do terrible things to you, my baby! You’re safer dead than here alive, if it comes to that. Now promise me. Promise!”

Fraley choked back the racking sobs that came to her throat and promised. The woman sank back and closed her eyes. It seemed she hardly breathed. The girl thought she was asleep and kept quite still, but after a time the stillness frightened her, and she lifted her trembling hand and touched the cold cheek. Her mother opened her eyes.

“I’ve been praying,” she murmured. “I’ve put you in
His
care.”

There was a flicker of a smile on the tired lips, and the cold hand made a feeble attempt at a pressure on the warm, vivid one it held.

After that she seemed to sleep again.

The girl, worn with sorrow and apprehension, sank in her cramped position on the floor into a troubled sleep herself, and the old dog, padding softly back from the hunt with delicate tread, slunk silently down near her, closing sad eyes and sighing.

Tired out, the girl slept on, past the noon hour, into the afternoon, never knowing when the cold hand grew moist with death damp, never seeing the shadow that crept over the loved face, the faint breaths, slow and farther between, as the dying soul slipped nearer to the brink.

The dog, hungry, patient, sighed and sighed again, closed his eyes and waited, understanding perhaps what was passing in the old cabin, his dog heart aching with those he loved.

The shadows were changing on the mountaintops, and the long rays of the setting sun were flinging across the cabin floor, laying warm fingers on the old brown dog, bright fingers on the gold of the girl’s hair, and a glory of another world on the face of the passing soul. Suddenly the dying eyes opened, and with a gasp, the woman clutched at the young relaxed hand that lay in hers.

“Fraley! Child! The old Bible!” The words were almost inarticulate except to loving ears, but the girl started awake and put her warm young arms around her mother.

“Yes, Mother. I’ll keep it. I’ll always keep it! I’ll not forget. I’ll never let anyone take it from me.”

Her words seemed to pierce the dying ears, and a smile trembled feebly on the white lips. For a long moment she lay in Fraley’s young arms, as if content, like a nestling child. Then, with superhuman strength, the dying woman lifted herself, and a light broke into her face, a light that made her look young and glad and well again, as her child could never remember her having looked.

“He’s
come
for me!” she cried joyously, as if it were an honor she had not expected, and then, her eyes still looking up as if hearing a voice, said, “He’s going to keep
you
safe! Good-bye! Till you come!”

With the smile still on her lips, she was gone. The girl, stunned, dazed with her sorrow yet understanding that the great mystery of passing was over, laid her back on the flabby pillow and gazed on the face so changed, so rested in spite of its frailty, its wornness; that face already taking on itself the look of a closed and uninhabited dwelling. She watched the glory fade into stillness of death, wrote it down, as it were, in her secret heart, to recall all through her life, and then, as sometimes when she had watched the sunset dropping behind the mountain and all the world grow dark, she knew it was over, and she sank down on her knees beside all that remained that was dear to her in the great world and broke into heartbroken sobs.