"I'll bet they won't, not when they see our new dress an' our new gold watch--dress jest the color o' crow's-foot gra.s.s, watch thirty carats fine. I'd laugh to see 'em callin' my babe names then!"

And so by bribing, coaxing, and lying they finally obtained her tearful consent. They might not have succeeded even then had it not been for a young lady in Boomtown who was going back to the same school, and who offered to take her in charge. But there was hardly a day that she did not fling herself down into a chair and cry out:

"I jest ain't goin'. I'm all right here, an' I don't see why you can't let me stay here. _I_ ain't made no fuss. Seems as if you thought it was fun f'r me to go 'way off there where I don't know anythin' an'

where I don't know anybody."

But having come to a conclusion, the men were relentless. They hired sewing-girls, and skirmished back and forth between Boomtown and the farm like mad. Their steady zeal made up for her moody and fitful enthusiasm. However, she grew more resigned to the idea as the days wore on toward the departure, though her fits of dark and unusual musing were alarming to Anson, who feared a desperate retreat at the last moment.

He took her over to see Miss Holt one day, but not before he had prepared the way.

"I s'pose things are in purty good shape around this seminary?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, indeed. There are three large buildings; libraries, picture-galleries, and music-rooms. The boarding-halls are carpeted and the parlors are really elegant."

"Uh-hum!" commented Anson. "Well, now, I'm goin' to bring my girl over to see you, an' I guess it 'u'd be jest as well if you didn't mention these fineries an' things. Y' see, she's afraid of all such things. It 'u'd be better to tell her that things weren't very gorgeous there--about like the graded school in Boomtown, say. She ain't used to these music-halls an' things. Kind o' make her think St. Peter ain't no great shakes, anyhow."

"I see," laughed the quick-witted girl. And she succeeded in removing a good deal of Flaxen's dread of the seminary.

"Wal, babe, to-morrow," said Anson, as they were eating supper, and he was astonished to see her break out in weeping.

"Why don't you keep harpin' away on that the whole while?" she exclaimed. "Can't you leave me alone a minute? Seems to me you're jest crazy to git rid o' me."

"Oh, we are," put in Bert. "We're jest lickin' our chops to git back to sour flapjacks an' soggy bread. Jest seems as though we couldn't wait till to-morrow noon, to begin doing our own cookin' again."

This cleared the air a little, and they spent the rest of the evening without saying very much directly upon the departure. The two men sat up late after Flaxen had gone to bed. There was the trunk and valise which would not let them forget even for a moment what was coming on the morrow. Every time Anson looked at her he sighed and tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Say, Bert, let's let her stay if she wants to," he said suddenly after they had been in silence for a long time.

"Don't make a cussed fool of yourself, Ans," growled Bert, who saw that heroic measures were necessary. "Go to bed an' don't you say another word; we've got to take our medicine like men."

CHAPTER VIII.

AN EMPTY HOUSE.

Anson was the more talkative of the two next morning, however.

"Come, come, brace up, babe! Anybody 'u'd think we'd lost all the rest of our family, when we're only doin' the square thing by our daughter.

That's all. Why, you'll be as happy as a canary in less'n two weeks.

Young folks is about the same everywhere, an' you'll git acquainted in less'n two jiffies."

They were on the road to Boomtown to put Flaxen on the train. It was about the tenth of September, early in the cold, crisp air of a perfect morning. In the south there was a vast phantom lake, with duplicate cities here and there along the winding sh.o.r.es, which stretched from east to west. The grain-stacks stood around so thickly that they seemed like walls of a great, low-built town, the mirage bringing into vision countless hundreds of them commonly below the horizon.

The smoke of steam threshing-machines mounted into the still air here and there, and hung long in a slowly drifting cloud above the land. The prairie-lark, the last of the singing birds, whistled softly and infrequently from the dry gra.s.s. The gulls were streaming south from the lakes.

They were driving her to Boomtown to avoid the inquisitive eyes of the good people of Belleplain. "I may break down an' blubber," said Anson to Bert; "an' if I do, I don't want them cussed idiots standin' around laughin'--it's better to go on the C., B. and Q., anyhow."

Notwithstanding his struggle to keep talk going, Anson was unsuccessful from the very moment that Belleplain faded to an unsubstantial group of shadows and disappeared from the level plain into the air, just as Boomtown correspondingly wavered into sight ahead. Silence so profound was a restraint on them all, and poor Flaxen with wide eyes looked wistfully on the plain that stretched away into unknown regions. She was thinking of her poor mother, whom she dimly remembered in the horror of that first winter. Naturally of a gay, buoyant disposition, she had not dwelt much upon her future or her past; but now that the familiar plain seemed slipping from her sight entirely, she was conscious of its beauty, and, rapt with the a.s.sociated emotions which came crowding upon her, she felt as though she were leaving the tried and true for the unknown and uncertain.

"Boys," she said finally, "do you s'pose I've got any folks?"

"I shouldn't wonder if y' had, babe, somewhere back in the ol'

country."

"They couldn't talk with me if I could find 'em, could they?"

"I reckon not, 'less you study so hard that you can learn their lingo,"

said Ans, seeing another opportunity to add a reason for going to school.

"Well, boys, that's what I'm goin' to do, an' by an' by we'll go over there an' see if we can't find 'em, won't we?"

"That's the talk; now you're gittin' down to business," rejoined Ans.

"I s'pose St. Peter is a good 'eal bigger'n Boomtown," she said sighfully, as they neared the "emporium of the sleepy James."

"A little," said the astute Gearheart.

The clanging of the engines and the noise of shouting gave her a sinking sensation in the chest, and she clung to Anson's arm as they drove past the engine. She was deafened by the hiss of the escaping steam of the monster standing motionless, headed toward the east, ready to leap on its sounding way.

On the platform they found Miss Holt and a number of other friends waiting. There was a great deal of clanging and whanging and scuffling, it seemed to the poor, overwrought girl. Miss Holt took her in charge at once and tried to keep her cheerful. When they had checked her trunk and the train was about ready to start, Ans looked uneasy and fidgeted about. Bert looked on, silent and dark. Flaxen, with her new long dress and new hat, looked quite the woman, and Miss Holt greeted her as such; indeed, she kept so close to her that Anson looked in vain for a chance to say something more which was on his mind. Finally, as the train was about going, he said hesitatingly:

"Elga, jest a minute." She stared for a moment, then came up to him.

"I didn't want to call y' Flaxen afore her," he explained; "but you--ain't--kissed us good-bye." He ended hesitatingly.

The tears were already streaming down her cheeks, and this was too much. She flung her arms about his neck and sobbed on his bosom with the abandon of girlish grief.

"I don't wan' to go 't all, pap."

"Oh, yes, y' do, Elga; yes; y' do! Don't mind us; we'll be all right.

I'll have Bert writin' a full half the time. There, kiss me good-bye an' git on--Bert here, too."

She kissed him twice through his bristling moustache, and going to Bert offered her lips, and then came back to Anson and threw herself against his broad, strong breast. She had no one to love but these two. It seemed as if she were leaving everything in the world. Anson took her on his firm arm and helped her on the car, and followed her till she was seated beside Miss Holt.

"Don't cry, babe; you'll make ol' pap feel turrible. He'll break right down here afore all these people, an' blubber, if y' don't cheer up.

Why, you'll soon be as happy as a fly in soup. Good-bye, good-bye!"

The train started, and Anson, brushing his eyes with his great brown hand, swung himself off and stood looking at her. As the train pa.s.sed him she rushed to the rear end of the car, and remained there looking back at the little station till the sympathetic Miss Holt gently led her back to her seat. Then she flattened her round cheek against the pane and tried to see the boys. When the last house of the town pa.s.sed by her window she sank back in her seat and sobbed silently.

"I feel as if I'd be'n attendin' my own funeral," said Anson, after they had got into their wagon and the train had gone out of sight in the haze of the prairie.

"Well, it's pretty tough on that child to go off that way. To her the world is all a great mystery. When you an' I go to heaven it won't be any greater change for us than this change for Flaxen--every face strange, every spot new."