"Did Annie get her letter?" I asked her.

My companion did not answer at once, but I knew very well that the letter had not come.

"She didn't ask for it at the last; she just looked at me before they put the gauze thing over her face. I knew what she meant. I had been down to see if it had come, and they told me all the mails were in for the day from the West. She just looked at me so pitiful, but it was like Annie not to ask. A letter from Dave would have comforted her so, but it didn't come, though I wired him two days before telling him when the operation would be. Annie was wonderful cheerful and calm, but I was trembling like a leaf when they were givin' her the ether, and when they wheeled her out all so stiff and white I just seemed to feel I'd lost my girl."

I took the old lady's hand and tried to whisper words of comfort. She returned the pressure of my hand; her eyes were tearless, and her voice did not even waver, but the thought of poor Annie going into the valley una.s.sured by any loving word gave free pa.s.sage to my tears.

"Did Dave write or wire?" I asked when I could speak.

"No, not a word; he's likely off on a spree." The old lady spoke bitterly now. "Everybody was kind to my Annie but him, and it was a word from him that would have cheered her the most. Dr. Mayo came and sat beside her just an hour before she died, and says he, 'You still have a chance, Mrs. Johnston,' but Annie just thanked him again for his kindness and sort o' shook her head.....

"The little woman from Saskatchewan didn't do well at all after the operation, and Dr. Mayo was afraid she wouldn't pull through. She asked him what chance she had, and he told her straight--the Mayos always tell the truth--that she had only one chance in a hundred. She was so weak that he had to bend down to hear her whisperin', 'I'll take that one chance!'"

"And did she?" I asked eagerly.

"She was still living when I left. She will get better, I think. She has a very good man, by what she was tellin' us, and a woman can stand a lot if she has a good man," the old lady said, with the wisdom born of experience. "I've nursed around a lot, and I've always noticed that!"

I have noticed it, too, though I've never "nursed around."

"Dave came with us to the station the day we left home. He was sober that day, and gave Annie plenty of money. Annie told him to get a return ticket for her, too. I said he'd better get just a single for her, for she might have to stay longer than a month; but she said no, she'd be back in a month, all right. Dave seemed pleased to hear her talk so cheerful. When she got her ticket she sat lookin' at it a long time. I knew what she was thinkin'. She never was a girl to talk mournful, and when the conductor tore off the goin' down part she gave me the return piece, and she says, 'You take this, mother.' I knew that she was thinkin' what the return half might be used for."

We changed cars at Newton, and I stood with the old lady and watched the trainmen unload the long box. They threw off trunks, boxes and valises almost viciously, but when they lifted up the long box their manner changed and they laid it down as tenderly as if they had known something of Annie and her troubled life.

We sent another telegram to Dave, and then sat down in the waiting-room to wait for the west train. The wind drove the snow in billows over the prairie, and the early twilight of the morning was bitterly cold.

Her train came first, and again the long box was gently put aboard. On the wind-swept platform Annie's mother and I shook hands without a word, and in another minute the long train was sweeping swiftly across the white prairie. I watched it idly, thinking of Annie and her sad home-going. Just then the first pale beams of the morning sun glinted on the last coach, and touched with fine gold the long white smoke plume, which the wind carried far over the field. There is nothing so cheerful as the sunshine, and as I sat in the little grey waiting-room, watching the narrow golden beam that danced over the closed wicket, I could well believe that a rest remains for Annie, and that she is sure of a welcome at her journey's end. And as the sun's warmth began to thaw the tracery of frost on the window, I began to hope that G.o.d's grace may yet find out Dave, and that he too may "make good" in the years to come. As for the little woman from Quill Lake, who was still willing to take the one chance, I have never had the slightest doubt.

THE UNGRATEFUL PIGEONS

Philip was a little boy, with a generous growth of freckles, and a loving heart. Most people saw only the freckles, but his mother never lost sight of his affectionate nature. So when, one warm spring day, he sat moodily around the house, she was ready to listen to his grievance.

"I want something for a pet," said Philip. "I have no dog or cat or anything!"

"What would you like the very best of all?" his mother asked, with the air of a fairy G.o.dmother.

"I want pigeons! They are so pretty and white and soft, and they lay eggs and hatch young ones."

All his gloom had vanished!

"How much a pair?" asked his mother.

"Twenty-five cents out at Crane's. They have millions of them; I can walk out--it's only five miles."

"Where will we put them when you bring them home?" she asked.

Philip thought they could share his room, but this suggestion was promptly rejected!

Then Philip's father was hurriedly interviewed by Philip's mother, and he agreed to nail a box on the end of the stable, far beyond the reach of prowling cats, and Philip, armed with twenty-five cents, set forth gaily on his five-mile walk. It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and a beautiful day of glittering April sunshine. The sun was nearly down when Philip returned, tired but happy. It seemed there had been some trouble in catching them. The quoted price of twenty-five cents a pair was for raw, uncaught pigeons, but Philip had succeeded at last and brought back two beauties, one with blue markings, and the other one almost white.

The path of true love never ran smooth; difficulties were encountered at once. Philip put a generous supply of straw in one end of the box for a bed, but when he put them in they turned round and round as if they were not quite satisfied with their lodgings. Then Philip had one of those dazzling ideas which so often led to trouble with the other members of his family. He made a hurried visit to Rose's--his sister's --room. Rose was a grown-up lady of twelve.

When he came back, he brought with him a dove-grey chiffon auto veil, the kind that was much favored that spring by young ladies in Rose's set, for a head protection instead of hats.

Rose's intimate friend, Hattie Matthews, had that very day put a knot in each side, which made it fit very artistically on Rose's head.

Philip carefully untied the knots, and draped it over the straw. The effect was beautiful. Philip exclaimed with delight! They looked so pretty and "woozy"!

In the innocence of his heart, he ran into the house, for Rose; he wanted her to rejoice with him.

Rose's language was pointed, though dignified, and the pretty sight was ruthlessly broken up. Philip's mother, however, stepped into the gap, and produced an old, pale blue veil of her own, which was equally becoming.

It was she, too, who proposed a pigeon book, and a very pleasant time was spent making it,--for it was not a common book, bought with money, but one made by loving hands. Several sheets of linen notepaper were used for the inside, with stiff yellow paper for the cover, the whole fastened with pale blue silk. Then Philip printed on the cover:

Philip Brown, Pigeon Book,

but not in any ordinary, plain, little bits of letters! Each capital was topped off with an arrow, and ended with a feather, and even the small letters had a thick blanket of dots.

The first entry was as follows:

April 7th.--_I wocked out to Crane's, and got 2 fantales. they are hard to ketch. I payed 25 scents. My father knailed a box on the stable, and I put in a bed of straw, they are bootiful. my sister would not let me have her vale, but I got one prettier. they look woozy_.

The next day, Sunday, Philip did not see how he could go to church or Sunday-school--he had not time, he said, but his mother agreed to watch the pigeons, and so his religious obligations did not need to be set aside.

Monday afternoon the Browns' back yard was full of little boys inspecting Philip's pigeons, not merely idle onlookers, but hard-headed poultry fanciers, as shown by the following entry:

April 9th.--_I sold a pare of white ones to-day to Wilfred Garbett, to be kept three weeks after birth, Eva Gayton wants a pare too any color, in July. She paid for them_.

Under this entry, which was made laboriously in ink, there was another one, in lead pencil, done by Philip's brother, Jack:

_This is called selling Pigeons short_.

Philip's friends recommended many and varied things for the pigeons to eat, and he did his best to supply them all, as far as his slender means allowed; he went to the elevator for wheat; he traded his good jack-knife for two mouse-eaten and anaemic heads of squaw-corn, which were highly recommended by an unscrupulous young Shylock, who had just come to town and was short of a jack-knife. His handkerchief, scribblers and pencils mysteriously disappeared, but other articles came in their place: a small round mirror advertising corsets on the back (Gordon Smith said pigeons liked a looking-gla.s.s--it made them more contented to stay at home); a small swing out of a birdcage, which was duly put in place (vendor Miss Edie Beal, owner unknown). Of course, it was too small for pigeons, but there were going to be little ones very soon, weren't there?

He also brought to them one day five sunflower seeds, recommended and sold by a mild-eyed little Murphy girl, who had the stubby fingers of a money-maker. Philip, being very low in funds that day, wanted her to accept prospective eggs in payment, but the stubby-fingered Miss Murphy preferred currency! Philip decided to make no entry of these transactions in his Pigeon Book.

His young brother, Barrie, began to be troublesome about this time, and to evince an unwholesome interest in the pigeons. The ladder, which was placed against the stable under their house, at first seemed to him too high to climb, but seeing the mult.i.tude of delighted spectators who went up and down without accident, he resolved to try it, too, and so successfully that he was able after a few attempts to carry a stick with him, stand on the highest rung, and poke up the pigeons.

One day he was caught--with the goods--by Philip himself. So indignant was Philip that for a moment he stood speechless. His young brother, jarred by a guilty conscience and fear of Philip, came hastily down the ladder, raising a few bruises on his anatomy as he came. Even in his infant soul he felt he deserved all he had got, and thought best not to mention the occurrence. Philip, too, generously kept quiet about it, feeling that the claims of justice had been met. The only dissatisfied parties in the transaction were the pigeons.

The next Sunday in Sabbath School there was a temperance lesson, and Barrie Brown quoted the Golden Text with a slight variation--"At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like a _ladder_!"

Philip was the only one who knew what he meant, and he said it served him good and right.

The following entry appears in the Pigeon Book:

_My brother Barrie poks them, but he got his leson. tomoro I'll let them out--there fond enough of home now I gess_.