Elder Conklin

Elder Conklin, by Frank Harris

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Title: Elder Conklin
Author: Frank Harris
Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23012]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELDER
CONKLIN ***

Produced by David Widger

ELDER CONKLIN
By Frank Harris
As soon as the Elder left the supper-table his daughter and the new
schoolmaster went out on the stoop or verandah which ran round the
frame-house. The day had been warm, but the chilliness of the evening

air betokened the near approach of the Indian summer. The house stood
upon the crest of what had been a roll in the prairie, and as the two
leant together on the railing of the stoop, they looked out over a small
orchard of peach-trees to where, a couple of hundred yards away, at the
foot of the bluff, Cottonwood Creek ran, fringed on either bank by the
trees which had suggested its name. On the horizon to their right, away
beyond the spears of yellow maize, the sun was sinking, a ball of
orange fire against the rose mist of the sky. When the girl turned
towards him, perhaps to avoid the level rays, Bancroft expressed the
hope that she would go with him to the house-warming. A little stiffly
Miss Conklin replied that she'd be pleased, but--
"What have I done, Miss Loo, to offend you?" the young man spoke
deprecatingly.
"Nothin', I guess," she answered, with assumed indifference.
"When I first came you were so kind and helped me in everything. Now
for the last two or three days you seem cold and sarcastic, as if you
were angry with me. I'd be sorry if that were so--very sorry."
"Why did you ask Jessie Stevens to go with you to the house-warmin'?"
was the girl's retort.
"I certainly didn't ask her," he replied hotly. "You must know I didn't."
"Then Seth lied!" exclaimed Miss Conklin. "But I guess he'll not try
that again with me--Seth Stevens I mean. He wanted me to go with him
to-night, and I didn't give him the mitten, as I should if I'd thought you
were goin' to ask me."
"What does 'giving the mitten' mean?" he questioned, with a puzzled
air.
"Why, jest the plainest kind of refusal, I guess; but I only told him I
was afraid I'd have to go with you, seein' you were a stranger. 'Afraid,'"
she repeated, as if the word stung her. "But he'll lose nothin' by waitin',
nothin'. You hear me talk." And her eyes flashed.

As she drew herself up in indignation, Bancroft thought he had never
seen any one so lovely. "A perfect Hebe," he said to himself, and
started as if he had said the words aloud. The comparison was apt.
Though Miss Loo Conklin was only seventeen, her figure had all the
ripeness of womanhood, and her height--a couple of inches above the
average--helped to make her look older than she was. Her face was
more than pretty; it was, in fact, as beautiful as youth, good features,
and healthy colouring could make it. A knotted mass of chestnut hair
set off the shapely head: the large blue eyes were deepened by dark
lashes. The underlip, however, was a little full, and the oval of the face
through short curve of jaw a trifle too round. Her companion tried in
vain to control the admiration of his gaze. Unelated by what she felt to
be merely her due, Miss Conklin was silent for a time. At length she
observed:
"I guess I'll have to go and fix up."
Just then the Elder appeared on the stoop. "Ef you're goin'," he said in
the air, as his daughter swept past him into the house, "you'd better
hitch Jack up to the light buggy."
"Thank you," said the schoolmaster; and for the sake of saying
something, he added, "What a fine view." The Elder paused but did not
answer; he saw nothing remarkable in the landscape except the Indian
corn and the fruit, and the words "fine view" conveyed no definite
meaning to him; he went on towards the stables.
The taciturnity of the Elder annoyed Bancroft excessively. He had now
passed a couple of weeks as a boarder with the Conklins, and the
Elder's unconscious rudeness was only one of many peculiarities that
had brought him to regard these Western folk as belonging almost to a
distinct species. George Bancroft was an ordinary middle-class
Bostonian.
He