Read Ebook: Bunch Grass: A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch by Vachell Horace Annesley

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Ebook has 2654 lines and 85284 words, and 54 pages

CHAP.

ALETHEA-BELLE

"But who will teach the children?" we asked.

"We've fixed that," said Mrs. Spafford. "'Tain't everyone as'd want to come into this wilderness, but my auntie's cousin, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, is willin' to take the job."

"Is she able?" we asked doubtfully.

"She's her father's daughter," Mrs. Spafford replied. "Abram Buchanan was as fine an' brave a man as ever preached the Gospel. An' clever, too. My sakes, he never done but one foolish thing, and that was when he merried his wife."

"Tell us about her," said that inveterate gossip, Ajax.

Mrs. Spafford sniffed.

"I seen her once--that was once too much fer me. One o' them lackadaisical, wear-a-wrapper-in-the-mornin', soft, pulpy Southerners. Pretty--yes, in a spindlin', pink an' white soon-washed-out pattern, but without backbone. I've no patience with sech."

"Her daughter won't be able to halter-break these wild colts."

"Didn't I say that Alethea-Belle took after her father? She must hev consid'able snap an' nerve, fer she's put in the last year, sence Abram died, sellin' books in this State."

"A book agent?"

"Yes, sir, a book agent."

If Mrs. Spafford had said road agent, which means highwayman in California, we could not have been more surprised. A successful book agent must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the guile of a serpent, the obstinacy of a mule, and the persuasive notes of a nightingale.

"If Miss Buchanan has been a book agent, she'll do," said Ajax.

She arrived at Paradise on the ramshackle old stage-coach late one Saturday afternoon. Ajax and I carried her small hair-trunk into the ranch-house; Mrs. Spafford received her. We retreated to the corrals.

"She'll never, never do," said Ajax.

Alethea-Belle Buchanan looked about eighteen; and her face was white as the dust that lay thick upon her grey linen cloak. Under the cloak we had caught a glimpse of a thin, slab-chested figure. She wore thread gloves, and said "I thank you" in a prim, New England accent.

"Depend upon it, she's had pie for breakfast ever since she was born," said Ajax, "and it's not agreed with her. She'll keep a foothill school in order just about two minutes--and no longer!"

At supper, however, she surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but the men--the rough teamsters, for instance--could not keep their eyes off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes, said grace; but to our first questions she replied, blushing, in timid monosyllables.

After supper, Mrs. Spafford and she washed up. Later, they brought their sewing into the sitting-room. While we were trying to thaw the little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the floor. In an instant Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran round the room and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Paradise to keep in order the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down from her chair.

"I'm scared to death of mice," she confessed. My brother Ajax scowled.

"Fancy sending that whey-faced little coward--here!" he whispered to me.

"Have you taught school before?" I asked.

"Thanks," said Ajax stiffly.

Next day was Sunday. At breakfast the schoolmarm asked Ajax if there was likely to be a prayer-meeting.

"A prayer-meeting, Miss Buchanan?"

"It's the Sabbath, you know."

"Yes--er--so it is. Well, you see," he smiled feebly, "the cathedral isn't built yet."

"Why, what's the matter with the schoolhouse? I presume you're all church-members?"

Her grey eyes examined each of us in turn, and each made confession. One of the teamsters was a Baptist; another a Latter-Day Adventist; the Spaffords were Presbyterians; we, of course, belonged to the Church of England.

"We ought to have a prayer-meeting," said the little schoolmarm.

"Yes; we did oughter," assented Mrs. Spafford.

"I kin pray first-rate when I git started," said the Baptist teamster.

The prayer-meeting took place. Afterwards Ajax said to me--

In the afternoon we had an adventure which gave us further insight into the character and temperament of the new schoolmarm.

We all walked to Paradise across the home pasture, for Miss Buchanan was anxious to inspect the site--there was nothing else then--of the proposed schoolhouse. Her childlike simplicity and assurance in taking for granted that she would eventually occupy that unbuilt academy struck us as pathetic.

"I give her one week," said Ajax, "not a day more."

Coming back we called a halt under some willows near the creek. The shade invited us to sit down.

"Are there snakes--rattlesnakes?" Miss Buchanan asked nervously.

"In the brush-hills--yes; here--no," replied my brother.

"Mercy!" exclaimed the schoolmarm, staring wildly about her. It is not easy to localise the exact position of a coiled rattlesnake by the sound of his rattle.

"Don't move!" said Ajax. "Ah, I see him! There he is! I must find a stick."

The snake was coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a willow; then he advanced.

"Oh!" entreated Miss Buchanan, "please don't go so near."

"There's no danger," said Ajax. "I've never been able to understand why rattlers inspire such terror. They can't strike except at objects within half their length, and one little tap, as you will see, breaks their backbone. Now watch! I'm going to provoke this chap to strike; and then I shall kill him."

He held the end of the stick about eighteen inches from the glaring, lidless eyes. With incredible speed the poised head shot forth. Ajax laughed. The snake was recoiling, as he struck it on the neck. Instantly it writhed impotently. My brother set the heel of his heavy boot upon the skull, crushing it into the ground.

"Now let's sit down," said he.

"Hark!" said the little schoolmarm.

Another snake was rattling within a yard or two of the first.

"I'll have him in a jiffy," said my brother.

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