Jack's thin hand waved both her and her objections aside.

"Hike along," he insisted, cheerfully, "I merely said _if_!"

Considerably worried by what she thought was a groundless hope of Jack's, Mary started out of the gate. His suggestion seemed to change the entire landscape, and instead of seeing it as it had grown to look to her accustomed eyes, she saw it as she imagined it would appear to Phil; the cottage she was leaving behind her, the wide blue lupin meadows ahead, the white of the wild plum blossoms mingled with the glowing branches of the red-bud trees, in every lane and stretch of woodland.

With her old childish propensity for day-dreaming unabated, she made pictures for herself as she walked along towards the foot-bridge.

Suppose he really would come, and she, by some intuition of his approach, could divine the day and hour. She would like to be all in white when he met her, emerging from the edge of the woods with her arms heaped up with snowy ma.s.ses of wild plum blossoms, and a spray of red-bud in her hair. Or, maybe, it would be more picturesque for her to be standing in the boat, poling slowly towards the landing, a cargo of wild flowers at her feet like a picture of the Spirit of Spring.

Here she broke off from her musings, saying, half aloud, "But as sure as I posed to look like a Spring G.o.ddess I'd be looking like a young goose.

It doesn't pay for me to plan impressive entrances and meetings; they always turn out with my looking perfectly ridiculous."

She had reached the first turn in the road by this time, and, stooping to tie her shoe, suddenly became aware of the fact that her hands were empty. She had started off without the alarm-clock and the magnifying gla.s.s which she always carried on these trips. In addition she had intended to bring a large market-basket to-day, in which to put the flowers. The basket, with the clock and gla.s.s inside, was in her hand before she started. She remembered she had set it down for a moment on the front step while she went back into Jack's room, and it was what he said about Phil's coming that made her go off without it. There was no time to lose, so she started back, running all the way.

s.n.a.t.c.hing up the basket from the step where she found it still undisturbed, she was starting off again, when a little bird-like cry stopped her. It was like the softest notes of a mocking-bird.

"That provoking little wildcat is out of her cage again!" she exclaimed, stopping to look all around. "Here, Matilda, kitty, kitty, where are you?"

In response to her call, what seemed to be the gentlest of house-kittens came bounding through the gra.s.s. Thinking it would be less trouble to take it along than to carry it back to its cage in the woodshed when she was in such a great hurry, Mary caught it up in her arms, and once more started down the road, one hand slipped through the handle of the basket. It snuggled down against her shoulder, purring loudly.

"You ridiculous little atom!" laughed Mary. "I wonder what the girls at Warwick Hall would say if they could see me going along carrying a live _wildcat_. That will be something wild and Texasy for me to put in my next letters. I needn't say that it weighs only twenty ounces, and that if it wasn't for its bow legs and funny little bobbed tail and spotted stomach one would think it was just a tame, ordinary, domestic p.u.s.s.y.

But you'll be savage enough by and bye, won't you? When the ta.s.sels grow on your ear-tips and your whiskers spread out wide and your spots get big and tigery!"

Two soft paws reached up to tap her face, and she gave the furry ball in her arms an affectionate squeeze. She had never cared especially for kittens, but this little wild one with its coquettish ways had wonderfully ingratiated itself into her affections in the week she had owned it. Mrs. Barnaby had brought it in from the ranch. Cousin Sammy had found eight of them in the woods after Pedro had killed the old mother cat, caught in the act of carrying off one of the turkeys. This was the only one that lived. Mrs. Barnaby could not keep it, because, tiny as it was, it toddled around after the chickens and put even the big Plymouth Rock hens to flight. So she brought it in to Mary, and Mary, feeling particularly forlorn that day, welcomed the little orphan, because its lonely state gave them a bond in common.

The day it came happened to be her eighteenth birthday, with nothing to mark it as a gala occasion except a handkerchief from her mother and a string of trout from Norman. He had gone out before daylight to catch them for her breakfast. Joyce's present did not arrive until the next day, and the round-robin letter from Warwick Hall was nearly a week late. Not until after the sorority was seated at its annual St.

Patrick's Day dinner, did they recall the double celebration they had had the year before. The letter was written then and there, pa.s.sing around the table with the bonbons, that each one present might add a birthday greeting. Then Dorene, to whom it was entrusted, forgot to post it for several days. It was a joy when it did come, but the anniversary itself, before the letter reached her, was a disappointing day.

She had always looked forward to her eighteenth birthday as being one of the most important milestones of her life; not so important, of course, as one's graduation or debut or wedding, but still a day that should be made memorable by something unusually nice. Years ago Jack had promised her a watch on her eighteenth birthday, a little chatelaine watch with a mother-of-pearl case, like the one the old Colonel had given to Lloyd.

But when the time came Jack did not even know that it was her birthday.

He never looked at the calendar since their weary, monotonous days had grown to be all alike. She did not show him the handkerchief or tell him that the delicious fish which they had for breakfast was in honor of any especial occasion. In no way did she refer to its being the seventeenth of March.

She ironed all morning and took the children out in the afternoon, as usual, and nothing made the day different from an ordinary one, only that she felt very old and grown up, and thought now and then a little pityingly of her early expectations and the way they had turned out. In a vague sort of way she was sorry for herself, till Mrs. Barnaby came in with the baby wildcat, which she jokingly offered as a St. Patrick's day greeting.

Mary immediately named it Matilda, for Mrs. Barnaby, and for the civilizing effect such a tame, gentle sort of name ought to have on a wild creature. In watching it and laughing over its playful antics she forgot to feel middle-aged and sorry for herself.

As long as someone could keep an eye on it to prevent its straying away after any animal that pa.s.sed the house, it could be allowed the liberty of the place, but whenever Mary went off for a long time it had to be fastened in its cage. This was the first time she had taken it with her for an afternoon's outing, and as she hurried down the road with it in her arms, the knowledge of what she was carrying gave her the first feeling of adventure that she had had since coming to Texas. "It's all been as tame as an old Tabby and a teapot," she thought. She had pictured Texas as a land of cowboys and round-ups and thrilling frontier experiences. She had found only the commonplace and conventional, so that there was a source of satisfaction in the fact that, at last, she had captured something untamed and savage.

As she reached the foot-bridge a party on horseback came down the opposite bank to cross the ford. She recognized the young fellow in the lead as a boy from the East who had been staying at the Williams House several months. Evidently he also had expected to find Texas a land of adventure. Soon after his arrival he appeared in the quiet streets of Bauer attired like the cowboy of a Wild West show. That he was a tenderfoot was amusingly apparent to the natives. Everything proclaimed it, from his awkward seat in his creaking new saddle to the new rope coiled around the horn of it. He could have no more use for a lariat than for a tomahawk, but he never rode without it. He had his picture taken in full paraphernalia, from his spurs to the rattlesnake skin band on his rakish sombrero, to send back home to show what a sport he had become; and his cup of satisfaction brimmed over when a still more recent tenderfoot took a snapshot of him, evidently considering him the "real thing."

He had three Eastern girls with him this morning, whom he was trying to impress with stories of his recklessness and prowess, and of the dangers one daily encountered in a new country. He had met Norman and he knew Mary by sight, and had heard of her odd pet. As they approached her he said, in a tone which she could not fail to hear, although he lowered his voice:

"There's mighty little out here that is tame. Lots of people keep foxes running around their premises instead of rat-terriers, and when they can get a wildcat they always prefer them to tame mousers."

"Now, Dexter, stop stuffing us," one of the girls exclaimed. "I don't believe a word of it!"

"It's the truth," he insisted. "That very young lady over yonder on the foot-bridge could tell you so. That isn't a kitten she is carrying. It is a young wildcat."

The next instant the girl was splashing through the water across to Mary, calling, "Excuse me, but _is_ that a wildcat? I can't believe it!"

Mary had heard the conversation, and her face dimpled with amus.e.m.e.nt as she held Matilda up to view, saying, "Certainly. See how beautifully she is marked." She pointed out the various signs which proved her claim.

The girl gave a little shriek. "For mercy sakes!" she exclaimed.

"Suppose it should get loose! What a dreadful country! Aren't you afraid?"

a.s.sured that Mary was not in the least afraid, she dashed up the bank after her laughing escort, who thereafter had no trouble in convincing her that his most daring tales were true, since Matilda had proved the truth of his first one.

Mary looked after them almost enviously. When she first came to Bauer she had had faint hopes of sometime being able to join a riding party like that. She had seen girls going by often from the hotel, and had told herself that, before the winter was over, she intended to find some way to earn enough to hire a horse one afternoon of every week. And that time when she visited Gay, and Roberta talked of saddles while she combed Mary's hair, Roberta had said that she would ride up to Bauer sometime after Christmas; all her "crowd" would go, and they would stay several days at the Williams House, and Mary was to show them the country.

Gay had promised several visits, and Mary had looked forward to them more eagerly than she knew, till word came soon after New Year that the Bauer trips would have to be postponed indefinitely. Roberta had gone to the coast for the rest of the winter, and Gay expected to spend several months with her sister Lucy, Mrs. Jameson Harcourt, in Florida.

It seemed to Mary that there had been disappointment for her in her Texas winter every way she turned. True, Gay was home now, and they had had two pleasant days with her, once when she and Alex Shelby came up to announce their engagement, and cheered Jack up so wonderfully. But Gay wasn't interested in horseback riding with "the crowd" any longer.

Besides, the Ware fortunes had taken such a turn that the money she had succeeded in earning had to go for more necessary things than saddles and horse-hire and a pretty habit.

As Mary glanced after the departing cavalcade once more the sight of them suggested a new picture that appealed to her as an interesting way to meet Phil in case he should come. It would be so picturesque to be galloping down the road on a mettlesome black horse in a pretty white riding habit like those girls were wearing. White, with a scarlet four-in-hand and a soft fold of scarlet silk around the crown of her wide-brimmed white hat. Phil had been such a dashing horseman himself, and had owned such a beautiful animal when they were out on the desert, that maybe he would be more interested in an approach made that way, than one in a boat with a cargo of wild flowers. She walked along slowly, considering the question, till Brud and Sister hailed her.

Meanwhile Jack was saying to his mother that it wouldn't have been fair to the kid to let her get away without some inkling of the truth.

"She'd have been terribly upset if I'd have told her that they are due here this afternoon, and she'd have been equally upset if they had walked in on her without any warning. But the hint I gave her will start her to thinking about them, so she will not be altogether surprised when she sees them."

He had waited until Mary left the house before breaking the news to his mother that he expected Alex Shelby to come sometime during the afternoon, bringing Doctor Tremont and Phil. But even then he did not mention the faint hope which had buoyed him up night and day since Alex's first visit. He had faith in the young physician's ability, but not until the older one confirmed his opinion would he allow himself to share that hope with any one else, lest it prove without foundation.

With his eyes on the clock he lay counting the minutes until their arrival. He was deliberately forcing himself to be calm; to take slow, even breaths, to think of everything under the sun save the one thing which set his pulses to beating wildly and sent a thrill like fire tingling through him. He lay there like a prisoner in his dungeon who hears footsteps and new voices approaching. They might mean that deliverance is at hand, or they might pa.s.s on, leaving him to the blackness and despair of his dungeon for the rest of his life. In a like agony of apprehension he watched the pendulum swing back and forth, and listened to the slow tick! tock! till his suspense grew almost unendurable.

One hand clasped and unclasped a corner of the counterpane in a paroxysm of nervousness. He lay with his face turned away from his mother, and she, busy with her endless sewing over by the side window, did not guess what great effort he was making to retain his outward composure. She saw his eyes fixed on the clock, however, when she rose to get a spool that had rolled away, and feeling his restrained restlessness she tried to think of something to talk about which would make him forget how slowly time was pa.s.sing. Subjects of that kind are rare, when two people have been constantly shut in together for a year, and while she considered, a long silence fell between them. It was broken by a demand, almost querulous, from Jack; the same cry that had aroused her in the night, when he was a little boy, suddenly awakening from a scary dream.

"_Sing to me, mother!_"

It had been years since she had heard that cry, and the long form stretched out under the white covers bore small resemblance to the little one that had summoned her then, but she answered in the same soothing way:

"All right, little son, what shall I sing?"

She smiled as the same tremulous answer came now as it had then.

"Why, sing _my_ song! Of course!"

She did not rise as had been her custom, to go to his bedside and hold his hand while she lulled him back to sleep with her low humming, and the blessed consciousness of her nearness. He was a grown man now, and it was broad daylight. But instinctively she felt his need was greater than it had ever been, and her voice took on its tenderest soothing quality as she began to croon the old hymn that had always been his chosen lullaby, when he was tucked to sleep in a little crib bed.

"Pilgrims of the Night," she sang:

"'Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling, O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat sh.o.r.e.'"

Glancing across, she saw his drawn face relax a trifle, and he snuggled his thin cheek contentedly against the pillow. High and sweet her voice rose tremulously:

"'Angels of light, Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.'"

The song had many a.s.sociations for them both. What he was thinking about she could not guess, but when she began the third verse:

"'Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,'"

her own thoughts were back in that time when she rocked in her arms the dearest little son that ever cuddled against a mother's shoulder. She was recalling time after time when she had held him so, telling him good-night stories, listening to his funny little questions and baby confidences, and kissing the dimpled fingers clasped in her own when he knelt to lisp his evening prayer.