CHAPTER IV

THE DEBUTANTE

A year after the small happenings I have just related, great events began to cl.u.s.ter about Dic. They were truly great for him and of course were great for Rita.

Through Billy Little's aid Dic received an offer from an eastern horse buyer to lead a drove of horses to New York. The task was difficult, and required a man of health, strength, judgment, and nerve. The trip going would require two months, and the horses must be kept together, fed, cared for, and, above all, protected night and day from horse thieves, until after the Alleghanies were crossed. The horses were driven loose in herds of one hundred or more. Three men const.i.tuted a crew. In this instance Dic was to be in charge, and two rough horse-boys would be his a.s.sistants. It would have been impossible to _drive_ the horses over the fenceless roads and through the leagues of trackless forest; therefore, they were led. The men would take turns about riding in advance, and the man leading would continually whistle a single shrill note which the horses soon learned to follow. Should the whistling cease for a moment, the horses would stop and perhaps stampede. This might mean forty-eight hours of constant work in gathering the drove, with perhaps the loss of one or more. If you will, for one hour, whistle a shrill note loud enough to reach the ears of a herd of trampling, neighing horses, you will discover that even that task, which is the smallest part of horse "leading," is an exhausting operation.

The work was hard, but the pay was good, and Dic was delighted with the opportunity. One of its greatest attractions to him was the fact that he would see something of the world. Billy Little urged him to accept the offer.

"A man," said he, "estimates his own stature by comparing it with those about him, and the most fatal mistake he can make is to underestimate his size. Self-conceit is ugly, but it never injured any one. Modesty would have ruined Napoleon himself. The measure of a man, like the length of a cloth-yard, depends upon the standard. Go away from here, Dic. Find your true standard. Measure yourself and return, if you wish.

This place is as good as another, if a man knows himself; if he doesn't, he is apt to be deceived by the littleness of things about him. Yet there are great things here, too--greater, in some respects, than any to be found in New York; but the great things here are possibilities. Of course, possibilities are but the raw material. They must be manufactured--achieved. But achievement, my boy, achievement! that's the whole thing, after all. What would Caesar Germanicus and Napoleon have been without possibilities? A ready-made opportunity is a good thing in its way, but it is the creation of opportunity out of crude possibilities that really marks and makes the man and stamps the deed.

Any hungry fool would seize the opportunity to eat who might starve if he had to make his bread. Go out into the world. You have good eyes. It will not take long to open them. When they are opened, come back and you will see opportunities here that will make you glad you are alive."

"But, Billy Little," replied Dic, who was sitting with Rita on the sycamore divan, while their small elderly friend sat upon the gra.s.s facing them, "you certainly have seen the world. Your eyes were opened before you came here, and it seems to me your learning and culture are buried here among the possibilities you speak of."

"No, Dic," answered Billy, "you see, I--well, I ran away from--from many things. You see, you and I are cast in different moulds. You are six feet tall, physically and temperamentally." Rita thought Billy was the most acute observer in Christendom, but she did not speak, save with her eyes. Those eyes nowadays were always talking.

"Six feet don't amount to much," responded Dic. "There is Doug Hill, who is six feet three, with no more brains than a catfish. It is what's at the top of the six feet that counts. You have more at the top of your five feet four than the tallest man on Blue, and as I said, you seem to be buried here. Where are the possibilities for you, Billy Little? And if you can't achieve something great--poor me!"

"There are different possibilities for different men. I think, for example, I have achieved something in you. What say you, Rita?"

The girl was taken unawares. "Indeed you have, glorious--splendid--that is, I mean you have achieved something great in all of us whom you have tried to influence. I see your possibilities, Billy Little. I see them stamped upon the entire Blue River settlement. La Salle and Marquette, of whom Dic read to me from your book, had the same sort of opportunities. Their field was broader, but I doubt if their influence will be more lasting than yours."

"Rather more conspicuous," laughed Billy.

"Yes," answered Rita, "your achievements will not be recorded. Their effect will probably be felt by all of us, and the achievement must be your only reward."

"It is all I ask," returned Billy. Then, after a pause, he spoke in mock reproof to Dic, "Now, hang your head in shame."

"I suppose it's my turn," Dic replied.

"The achievements of picturesque men only should be placarded to the world," said Billy. "The less said about a little old knot like me the better for--better for the knot."

"You are not a knot," cried Rita indignantly.

"Rita," said Dic, "you know the walnut knot, while it shows the roughest bark, has the finest grain in the tree."

"I am going home if you don't stop that sort of talking," said Billy, pleased to his toes, but pretending to be annoyed.

A fortnight before Dic's intended departure for New York an opportunity presented itself of which the young man, after due consideration, determined to take advantage. He walked over one evening to see Tom, but, as usual, found Rita. After a few minutes in which to work his courage up, he said:--

"There is to be a church social at Scott's to-morrow night--the Baptists. I wonder if you would like--that is, would want to--would be willing to go with me?"

"I would be glad to go," answered the girl; "but mother won't let me."

"We'll go in and ask her, if you wish," he replied.

"There's no use, but we can try. Perhaps if she thinks I don't want to go, she will consent."

Into the house they went, and Dic made his wants known to the head of the family.

"No," snapped the good lady, "she can't go. Girls of sixteen and seventeen nowadays think they are young ladies."

"They are dull, anyway," said Rita, referring to church socials. "I have heard they are particularly dull at Scott's--the Baptists are so religious. Sukey Yates said they did nothing but preach and pray and sing psalms and take up a collection at the last social Scott gave.

It's just like church, and I don't want to go anyway." She had never been to a church social, but from what she had heard she believed them to be baccha.n.a.lian scenes of riotous enjoyment, and her remarks were intended to deceive.

"You should not speak so disrespectfully of the church," said the Chief Justice, sternly. "The Lord will punish you for it, see if He doesn't.

Since I think about it, the socials held at Scott's are true, religious, G.o.d-fearing gatherings, and you shall go as a punishment for your sacrilegious sneers. Perhaps if you listen to the Word, it may come back after many days." Margarita, Sr., often got her Biblical metaphors mixed, but that troubled her little. There was, she thought, virtue in scriptural quotations, even though entirely inapplicable to the case in point.

"Come for her to-morrow evening, Dic," said Mrs. B. "She shall be ready." Then turning to Rita: "To speak of the Holy Word in that manner!

You shall be punished."

Dic and Rita went out to the porch. Dic laughed, but the girl saw nothing funny.

"It seems to me just as if I had told a story," she said. "One may act a story as easily as tell it."

"Well, you are to be punished," laughed Dic.

"But you know I want to go. I have never been to a social, and it will not punish me to go."

"Then you are to be punished by going with me," returned the stalwart young fisherman. She looked up to him with a flash of her eyes--those eyes were worse than a loose tongue for tattling--and said:--

"That is true."

Dic, who was fairly boiling with pleasant antic.i.p.ations, went to town next day and boiled over on Billy Little.

"I'm going to take Rita to Scott's social this evening," he said.

"Ah, indeed," responded Billy; "it's her first time out, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I envy her, by George, I do, and I envy you," said Billy. He did not envy Dic; but you may remember my remarks concerning bachelor hearts and their unprotected condition in this cruel world. There may be pain of the sort Billy felt without either envy or jealousy.

"Dic, I have a mind to send Rita a nice ribbon or two for to-night. What do you think about it?" asked Billy.

"She would be delighted," answered Dic. "She would accept them from you, but not from me."

"There is no flattery in that remark," answered Billy, with a touch of sharpness.

"Why, Billy Little, what do you suppose I meant?" asked Dic.

"I know you spoke the truth. She would accept a present from the little old knot, but would refuse it from the straight young tree."

"Why, Billy Little, I meant nothing of the sort."

"Now, not another word," interrupted Billy. "Give these ribbons to her when you ride home, and tell her the knot sends them to the sweetbrier."

Then turning his face to the shelves on the wall, and arranging a few pieces of goods, he hummed under his breath his favorite stanza, "Maxwelton's braes," and paid no further attention to his guest.