A Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl (14 page)

"'I'll ride her, and you lead Jap,' I decided.

"We started off at once. As we got out of the glen and on to the prairie we could see in the distance an immense flock of sheep, herded by two men on horseback. We were too far from them to recognize faces, but the general appearance of one of them suggested Spanish Lu.

"'They're grazing east of the ridge, in spite of what the judge settled!' exclaimed Lenox angrily. 'If I hadn't to take care of you and Darkie, I'd go and tell them what I think of them.'

"It seemed no use running our heads into danger, and perhaps having Darkie wrenched from us, so we made off east towards home. We had only gone about a mile when suddenly the sky to the west behind us turned black. In a few minutes we were in the thick of a terrific blizzard. My first instinct was to give Darkie her head and fly for the ranch, but Lenox caught at my bridle.

"'Ride back to the glen!' he shouted.

"Lenox knew enough about prairie blizzards to prevent him from trying to find our way home through this one. On the open plains, where the wind has full sweep, a blizzard is a thing to be dreaded. Though we had to face the storm to ride back to the glen, it was the safest thing to do, for we were not far away, and we should find shelter there. With our heads down, and sharp scraps of ice beating on our saddles, we urged our ponies along. Suddenly we caught sight of a great moving mass coming on with the storm. It was the immense flock of sheep, that had stampeded before the blizzard, and were drifting along across the prairie. Lenox stood up in his stirrups, and shouted to Coonie:

"'Ride over there, and we'll turn them into the glen!'

"Coonie understood in a second, and so did I. Unless we could drive the sheep into shelter, undoubtedly the whole number would perish in the storm. Lenox thrust Jap's bridle into my hand, and dashed ahead. In a few minutes he and Coonie had succeeded in turning the leaders towards the entrance of the creek, and after them swept the rest of the flock. We followed into the sheltered glen, and, dismounting from our ponies, found a nook under a projecting piece of rock. There were some tree-stumps about, and Lenox set to work to chop them with his axe, and soon made a roaring fire. How glad I was that Aunt Frances had made me bring the wrap! I should have been frozen without it. Even by the fireside the air was bitter. What must it be like out in the open prairie, we wondered? We had not sat long in our sheltered nook before we heard voices, and two figures, covered with ice and snow, made their appearance leading horses. They staggered to our camp-fire, half exhausted by the violence of the storm. Though his hair and his beard were white with snow, we had no difficulty in recognizing Spanish Lu. He thawed for a little, and then spoke to his herdsman.

"'The sheep!' he gasped.

"'They're all here,' answered Lenox in triumph. 'We saw them, and turned them into the creek.'

"Spanish Lu stared at us as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

"'You kids! You turned the whole herd?'

"I expect he felt pretty grateful, for, if it hadn't been for Lenox and Coonie, several thousand of his sheep would certainly have been lost, and, as it was, they were safely grazing in shelter. When the storm was sufficiently over for us to venture home, he led out Darkie himself and helped me to mount. Neither he nor we said a word about her loss, though we were perfectly certain he must have taken her from the stable.

"After that day he kept his sheep to his own side of the ridge, and, though he was never a pleasant neighbour, Uncle Carr wasn't obliged to go to law with him again about the boundary of the two ranches. So we felt that Darkie had patched up peace, particularly as we didn't accuse Lu Hudson of taking her. Horse-stealing is a very serious crime in the West, so I expect he thought he had got off uncommonly well."

"And what became of Darkie?" asked Meg, as Diana's manuscript came to a rather abrupt end.

"Uncle Carr gave up the ranch when he went into Congress, and Darkie and all the other ponies were left at Buller's Creek. She wouldn't have been happy off the prairie, or I'd have begged to have her. Lenox? Why, he's still in France; but I suppose he'll be demobilized soon, and going back to Harvard. He wants to be a professor, not a ranchman. He's a fearfully clever boy. Now, I've read my story, and I'm waiting for yours. Who's going to come next?"

"After such excitements as horse-stealing and a blizzard, our poor little adventures would seem very tame," said Mrs. Fleming, voicing the general feeling of the family, each member of which was showing a plain desire to shirk. "Suppose we keep our stories for another evening, and play games now? Meg, get pencils and paper, and we'll have a round of 'telegrams'."

Diana to the Rescue

Next morning the postman arrived quite laden with parcels and letters addressed to "Miss Diana Hewlitt". As Mrs. Fleming had prophesied, everything came at once, and her young guest spent a busy and ecstatic half-hour opening her various packages. Scent, French chocolates, Parisian embroideries, gloves, ribbons, and other dainty vanities such as girls love were raved over and spread forth on the table, while Diana devoured the contents of her letters. From one large envelope she drew forth a photograph of a lovely lady in evening-dress.

"It's Mother! Oh, how perfectly sweet! And the very image of her, too!" she cried, handing the photo to Meg for admiration.

Her fit of the blues had utterly vanished, and she was in a rose-coloured mood to-day. Meg, leaning over the table, deeply interested in the parcels, looked critically at the picture of the bright-eyed lady with the soft coils of fair hair.

"She's not like you, Diana."

"No. A thousand times better looking than I am!"

"I suppose you're like your father?"

"Yes, so people say, though I can't see it myself."

"How pretty she is--and how young! She might almost be your sister. And yet I suppose she must be middle-aged."

"What do you mean by 'middle-aged'?" demanded Diana sharply.

"Why, anything over thirty! I call
my
mother middle-aged."

"Do you?"

"Of course!" (Meg was still examining the photo.) "What a perfectly glorious dress to be taken in! And I adore her necklace. She's like the pictures one sees in
The Queen
. It must be lovely to have a pretty mother."

Diana was looking at Meg with an unfathomable expression in her grey eyes.

"Don't you call your mother pretty, then?" she asked.

"Oh, yes! she's a darling; but she's had her day. She's not a society beauty, is she?"

"N-n-n-o, I suppose not," said Diana thoughtfully.

The boys came into the room just then; the conversation was interrupted, and Meg probably forgot all about it. Diana, however, did not. At lunch-time she critically studied her hostess's features, and mentally compared them with those of the photo which had arrived that morning from Paris.

"I don't believe Mrs. Fleming is really any older than Mother," she decided. "She's been very pretty some time, but she's let herself go. It's a pity. All the same, I could shake Meg!"

An impression that had been gathering in Diana's mind ever since she arrived at the Vicarage now shaped itself into definite form. She did not like the attitude of her friends towards their mother. They were devoted to her, but their love lacked all element of admiration. Mrs. Fleming had made the common mistake of effacing herself utterly for the sake of her children. She had dropped her former accomplishments, even the music in which she had once excelled, and made herself an absolute slave to her household. So long as Meg and Elsie wore pretty frocks she cared nothing for her own dress; she never bought a new book or took a holiday; her interests were centred in the young people's achievements, and she had become merely the theatre of their actions. Going away seldom, and reading little, had narrowed her horizon. She often felt her ideas were out of date, and that she was not keeping up with the modern notions her children were imbibing at school. They always spoke with more respect of their teachers' opinions than of hers, and would allude to subjects they were learning as if they did not expect her to understand them. Sometimes they assumed little airs of patronage towards her. Among themselves they occasionally referred to her as "Only Mother!"

Diana, thinking it all carefully over, raged mentally. "I guess I've got to make those Flemings admire their mother!" she said to herself. "Just how to do it beats me at present, but I don't give up. I'd like to fix her hair for her if I dared. She strains it back till she looks like a skinned rabbit, and her dresses were made in the year one, I should say. She's a dear, all the same, though. If she could only be cured of feeling on the shelf, she'd grow ten years younger."

Having set herself the surprising undertaking of rejuvenating Mrs. Fleming, Diana went warily to work. It would certainly not do to reproach Meg, Elsie, and the boys for lack of appreciation of their mother; they would simply have stared in utter amazement. Somehow, by hook or by crook, she must be made to shine, so as to command their honest admiration. Diana catalogued her personal attractions:

1. A really quite classical nose.

2. A nice, neat mouth.

3. Good teeth.

4. A pretty colour when she gets hot or excited.

5. Quite fascinating brown eyes.

6. Hair that would be lovely if it were only decently done, instead of scooped away and screwed into a tight knob at the back.

Anybody with these points might make so much of them, if they only knew how to use them properly. Diana wondered if it would be possible to buy a book on the secrets of fascination. It was just the element that was lacking. Putting personality aside, she began probing into the extent of her friend's mental equipment. She induced her to bring out the water-colour sketches of former years, and even wrung from her a half promise that some day--when the weather was nice, and if she had time--she would paint a picture of the church.

"The boys would each like a sketch of their mother's to take to school with them," decreed Diana. "Monty would have his framed and hang it in his study, and show it to all his friends as
your
work."

"Why, so he might," said Mrs. Fleming, looking much surprised. The idea had evidently never occurred to her before.

From painting, Diana passed to other accomplishments. Mrs. Fleming rendered the accompaniments to Elsie's violin pieces and Meg's songs with a delicacy of touch that revealed the true musician.

"I wish you'd play something to me," begged Diana one day when the girls' practising was over and their mother was rising from the piano.

"
I
, my dear child! I never play now."

"Why not?"

"I gave up my music long ago, when I got married."

"You haven't forgotten it, though."

"Well, not altogether, of course. I'm a good reader still."

"Please!" urged Diana.

And, to content her impetuous visitor, Mrs. Fleming gave in. She pulled a volume of Chopin from the stand, and began the twelfth nocturne. It was years since she had played it, but as she touched the keys the old spirit crept back into her fingers, and the notes came rippling out delicately and easily. Diana, sunk back in the recesses of the long basket-chair, listened fascinated. She loved music when it was of a superior quality, and she did not often get the chance of hearing playing such as this.

"More! More!" she begged, when the nocturne came to an end.

The ice once broken, Mrs. Fleming, as much to her own astonishment as to that of the family, actually revived her interest in the piano. She hunted out her old pieces and began to practise them. She said it was to amuse Diana, but it was evident that enjoyment was mixed with her philanthropy. As a girl she had studied under a good master, and she had much natural talent. She would improvise sometimes, and even compose little things of her own.

"Why, my dear," said her husband, peeping into the drawing-room one evening just at the conclusion of the "Moonlight Sonata", "this takes me back to the time when we were engaged! I've been sitting listening in my study."

Diana, squatting on one foot in the corner of the sofa, clapped her hands softly. She liked the Vicar, but she thought his antiquarian researches monopolized the conversation at meal-times. It was quite nice to hear him express appreciation for some other line than his own. Diana had a scheme in her mind, and, when she judged the time was ripe, she proposed it suddenly and boldly in the face of the whole united family of Flemings. It was nothing more or less than that Mrs. Fleming should play a solo at the concert which was to be held at the schools on the 10th of January. In vulgar parlance, she "shot her bird sitting", plumped the idea upon her, and dragged forth an acceptance before--as the poor lady afterwards protested--she had time to realize what she was undertaking.

"Certainly. Why not?" confirmed her husband. "We badly want some more items on the programme. I shall put you down for two solos."

"But what
can
I play?" remonstrated Mrs. Fleming.

"Oh, Mother, you know heaps of things! Don't be absurd!" reproved Meg.

"I guess we'll have a rehearsal to-night, and choose your star pieces," said Diana, with shining eyes.

So far, so good. Her plot had answered admirably. The family took it almost as a matter of course that "Mother" was to perform at the concert, though it had never occurred to any of them to ask her to do so.

"She's a very good pianist," said Meg airily to Diana.

"Glad you think so!" rapped out Diana, with an emphasis that made Meg stare and whisper afterwards to Elsie that she couldn't quite somehow get at the back of "Stars and Stripes".

It was a mighty matter to select the two solos. Mrs. Fleming, flustered and bewildered at this unexpected dive into publicity, hesitated among many pieces. As she could not make up her own mind, Diana made it up for her.

"We want the 'Moonlight Sonata' for one, and Chopin's 'Ballade in A flat' for the other," she decided. "They're classical, but they're so exquisite that I guess even the old women will enjoy them. Then for the encores you could play----"