Elder Conklin | Page 8

had put him in a good humour, without, however, altering his critical
estimate of the girl. The quiet, controlled tone of his voice chilled and
pained her, but her emotions were too recent and too acute to be
restrained.
"Oh, George!" she said, leaning forward against the buggy, and
scanning his face intently. "How can you speak so? You ain't hurt, are
you?"
"No!" he answered lightly. "You didn't expect I should be, did you?"
The tone was cold, a little sarcastic even.
Again she felt hurt; she scarcely knew why; the sneer was too
far-fetched for her to understand it.
"Go and put the horse up, and then come back. I'll wait right here for
you."
He did as he was told, and in ten minutes was by her side again. After a
long pause, she began, with quivering lips:
"George, I'm sorry--so sorry. 'Twas all my fault! But I didn't know
"--and she choked down a sob--"I didn't think.
"I want you to tell me how your sisters act and--an' what they wear and
do. I'll try to act like them. Then I'd be good, shouldn't I?
"They play the pianner, don't they?" He was forced to confess that one
of them did.
"An' they talk like you?"
"Yes."
"An' they're good always? Oh, George, I'm jest too sorry for anythin',
an' now--now I'm too glad!" and she burst into tears. He kissed and
consoled her as in duty bound. He understood this mood as little as he
had understood her challenge to love. He was not in sympathy with her;

she had no ideal of conduct, no notion of dignity. Some suspicion of
this estrangement must have dawned upon the girl, or else she was
irritated by his acquiescence in her various phases of self-humiliation.
All at once she dashed the tears from her eyes, and winding herself out
of his arms, exclaimed:
"See here, George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know--pianner and
all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!" And her blue eyes
flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in defiant
vanity and self-assertion.
He watched her with indifferent curiosity; the abrupt changes of mood
repelled him. His depreciatory thoughts of her, his resolution not to be
led away again by her beauty influencing him, he noticed the keen
hardness of the look, and felt, perhaps out of a spirit of antagonism, that
he disliked it.
After a few quieting phrases, which, though they sprang rather from the
head than the heart, seemed to achieve their aim, he changed the
subject, by pointing across the creek and asking:
"Whose corn is that?"
"Father's, I guess!"
"I thought that was the Indian territory?"
"It is!"
"Is one allowed to sow corn there and to fence off the ground? Don't
the Indians object?"
"'Tain't healthy for Indians about here," she answered carelessly, "I
hain't ever seen one. I guess it's allowed; anyhow, the corn's there an'
father'll have it cut right soon."
It seemed to Bancroft that they had not a thought in common. Wrong
done by her own folk did not even interest her. At once he moved

towards the house, and the girl followed him, feeling acutely
disappointed and humiliated, which state of mind quickly became one
of rebellious self-esteem. She guessed that other men thought big
shucks of her anyway. And with this reflection she tried to comfort
herself.
A week or ten days later, Bancroft came downstairs one morning early
and found the ground covered with hoar-frost, though the sun had
already warmed the air. Elder Conklin, in his shirt-sleeves, was
cleaning his boots by the wood pile. When he had finished with the
brush, but not a moment sooner, he put it down near his boarder. His
greeting, a mere nod, had not prepared the schoolmaster for the
question:
"Kin you drive kyows?"
"I think so; I've done it as a boy."
"Wall, to-day's Saturday. There ain't no school, and I've some cattle to
drive to the scales in Eureka. They're in the brush yonder, ef you'd help.
That is, supposin' you've nothin' to do."
"No. I've nothing else to do, and shall be glad to help you if I can."
Miss Loo pouted when she heard that her lover would be away the
greater part of the day, but it pleased her to think that her father had
asked him for his help, and she resigned herself, stipulating only that he
should come right back from Eureka.
After breakfast the two started. Their way lay along the roll of ground
which looked down upon the creek. They rode together in silence, until
the Elder asked:
"You ain't a Member, air you?"
"No."
"That's bad. I kinder misdoubted it las' Sunday; but I