The Covered Wagon | Page 4

jealousy before this keen-eyed mother of a girl whose beauty had been
the talk of the settlement now for more than a year.
The rumors of the charm of Molly Wingate--Little Molly, as her father
always called her to distinguish her from her mother--now soon were to

have actual and undeniable verification to the eye of any skeptic who
mayhap had doubted mere rumors of a woman's beauty. The three
advance figures--the girl, Woodhull, her brother Jed--broke away and
raced over the remaining few hundred yards, coming up abreast,
laughing in the glee of youth exhilarated by the feel of good horseflesh
under knee and the breath of a vital morning air.
As they flung off Will Banion scarce gave a look to his own excited
steed. He was first with a hand to Molly Wingate as she sprang lightly
down, anticipating her other cavalier, Woodhull, who frowned, none
too well pleased, as he dismounted.
Molly Wingate ran up and caught her mother in her strong young arms,
kissing her roundly, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed in the
excitement of the hour, the additional excitement of the presence of
these young men. She must kiss someone.
Yes, the rumors were true, and more than true. The young
school-teacher could well carry her title as the belle of old Liberty town
here on the far frontier. A lovely lass of eighteen years or so, she was,
blue of eye and of abundant red-brown hair of that tint which ever has
turned the eyes and heads of men. Her mouth, smiling to show white,
even teeth, was wide enough for comfort in a kiss, and turned up
strongly at the corners, so that her face seemed always sunny and
carefree, were it not for the recurrent grave, almost somber look of the
wide-set eyes in moments of repose.
Above the middle height of woman's stature, she had none of the lank
irregularity of the typical frontier woman of the early ague lands; but
was round and well developed. Above the open collar of her brown
riding costume stood the flawless column of a fair and tall white throat.
New ripened into womanhood, wholly fit for love, gay of youth and its
racing veins, what wonder Molly Wingate could have chosen not from
two but twenty suitors of the best in all that countryside? Her conquests
had been many since the time when, as a young girl, and fulfilling her
parents' desire to educate their daughter, she had come all the way from
the Sangamon country of Illinois to the best school then existent so far
west--Clay Seminary, of quaint old Liberty.

The touch of dignity gained of the ancient traditions of the South, never
lost in two generations west of the Appalachians, remained about the
young girl now, so that she rather might have classed above her parents.
They, moving from Kentucky into Indiana, from Indiana into Illinois,
and now on to Oregon, never in all their toiling days had forgotten their
reverence for the gentlemen and ladies who once were their ancestors
east of the Blue Ridge. They valued education--felt that it belonged to
them, at least through their children.
Education, betterment, progress, advance--those things perhaps lay in
the vague ambitions of twice two hundred men who now lay in camp at
the border of our unknown empire. They were all Americans--second,
third, fourth generation Americans. Wild, uncouth, rude, unlettered,
many or most of them, none the less there stood among them now and
again some tall flower of that culture for which they ever hungered; for
which they fought; for which they now adventured yet again.
Surely American also were these two young men whose eyes now
unconsciously followed Molly Wingate in hot craving even of a
morning thus far breakfastless, for the young leader had ordered his
wagons on to the rendezvous before crack of day. Of the two, young
Woodhull, planter and man of means, mentioned by Molly's mother as
open suitor, himself at first sight had not seemed so ill a figure, either.
Tall, sinewy, well clad for the place and day, even more foppish than
Banion in boot and glove, he would have passed well among the
damsels of any courthouse day. The saddle and bridle of his mount also
were a trace to the elegant, and the horse itself, a classy chestnut that
showed Blue Grass blood, even then had cost a pretty penny
somewhere, that was sure.
Sam Woodhull, now moving with a half dozen wagons of his own out
to Oregon, was reputed well to do; reputed also to be well skilled at
cards, at weapons and at women. Townsmen accorded him first place
with Molly Wingate, the beauty from east of the river, until Will
Banion came back from the wars. Since then