The Wrong Woman (14 page)

Luckily for the work she had taken upon herself, Steve Brown had planned a
route for the day which any one could easily follow. He was going to graze the
sheep along Comanche Creek, downstream, on the right-hand side; he would bring
them back not very wide of the same course. This arrangement he had made
entirely with a view to being quickly found in case help arrived; he had left a
note behind giving instructions. As this was all very plain sailing, Janet saw
that she would be quite free to come and go, and she had been quick to turn this
arrangement to the lambs' advantage. When she had satisfied the worst of her
hunger she started out again. The consciousness that she could find him whenever
she wished, and was, virtually, in touch with him all the time, made her task
entirely enjoyable.

This time she reached the creek and gave herself over to its guidance.
Comanche Creek, like other prairie streams, had its line of trees which very
plainly belonged to it and not to the prairie. This impression of foreignness to
the region was emphasized by their extending in unbroken procession from horizon
to horizon, as if they were merely crossing the plains. While the stream hurried
on to its congregation of waters, the trees seemed bound for some distant
forest. Quite strictly they kept to the course; none of them, beech, hickory,
live-oak, nor pecan, encroached beyond the right of way nor seemed ever to have
been forgetful that these were the Plains. It was very much as if they
recognized that trees ought not to grow here. As, indeed, they ought not. The
prairie is itself as much as is the ocean or forest, and it has no room to
spare. Space, like wood and water, must have its own exclusive regions wherein
to exercise its larger and deeper spell. These were the earthly fastnesses of
space; and so preempted. Many grapevines looped along the route, some of them of
ancient growth, hanging like big ropes from tree to tree; these had the
appearance of keeping a still closer regard to the direction of the stream
itself, their more sinuous wood flowing along in a like spirit and keeping the
waters company. Nowhere so artfully, perhaps, as in a prairie stream, are eye
and ear addressed by the manifold activities of wood and water. To come across
it in the course of a long monotonous journey is as sudden as falling in
loveand very much like it.

Comanche Creek, having such advantages of contrast and sharp comparison, was
well calculated to strike the mind with the whole charm of stream and forest;
and so it worked upon Janet. To her right was the prairie as monotonous as duty;
to her left the creek with its mirrored vistas, its rippling bends, its
comfortable resting-places where sun and shade played together. Inviting as it
all was, however, she kept well out on the open where her business lay; only
occasionally did she let her gaze wander from its set task to loiter in this
more restful scene. She kept on looking for lambs. But after a while she awoke
to the fact that she had been walking closer and closer when she ought to be
keeping out on the prairie; instead of using it as a guide in her work she was
making a companion of it. She turned at once and marched out to the scene of
duty.

As she got out nearer to the centre of her field of operations,twelve
hundred sheep cut a pretty wide swath,she thought she heard the cry of a lamb.
She stopped and listened. All was silence. It might have been imagination,
assisted, possibly, by some rumor of the distant flock; but yet the still small
voice had seemed to come from somewhere near at hand. She went forward,
listening intently. Presently she heard it again; then she saw him. He was so
close that she could see his little red tongue as he opened his mouth and called
to her.

Poor little lamb! There was not a sheep in sight. There was just him and the
prairie. He was barely managing to stand up; she could easily see that he was on
his last legs as well as his first ones. As she went to him he took a step or
two as if to meet her, but his legs lacked stiffening and he fell on his nose.
She ran and picked him up. As she took him in her arms he opened his mouth again
and called upon his mother.

Which way to take him in search of milk became now a pressing problem. She
thought she felt him shiver. If he was to be saved, it would not do for him to
starve much longer; nature demands that if a lamb is to live he must have his
first meal without delay. She paused to decide the matter, holding his passive
little hoofs in her hand. To keep right on after the flock might prove the
quickest way; but again it might not; it would be taking a chance. Back at the
corral, far though it was, the services of a mother were certain. The surest way
seemed the best to her, and having decided so, she turned about at once, walking
rapidly.

The return trip seemed very long, and the forced pace told upon her strength.
She kept it up, however, till the goal had been reached. Having her orphan
inside the bars she deposited him in a corner while she turned her attention to
the row of little stalls or prison-pens which were built along the outside of
the fence. This institution she had observed with great interest. Each pen was
just large enough to crowd a ewe in, being calculated to allow her no liberty in
any way; they were all built so that sheep could be put into them from the
inside of the corral. She opened one of them, seized upon the first lamb at hand
and put it in, and when the fond mother put her nose in after it Janet gave her
a good push from behind and sent her in also; then she abstracted the rightful
lamb and put the other in its place. Having closed the opening she climbed over
the fence and sat down on the prairie beside the pen where she could look in
between the rails and watch developments.

The lamb, probably because it had gone too long without that first drink
which is the making of a lamb, did not seem able to rise. Janet put her hand in
between the rails and gave it a lift. Once it had its legs under it, it managed
for itself. To Janet's great satisfaction it filled up visibly. When it was
done, she let out the ewe, who hastened to find her own again, knocking down the
orphan in the process of getting out. As he made no effort to rise, Janet again
took him in her arms.

The lamb seemed dispirited and chilled. This is a condition which is quite
likely to overtake a "wet-lamb" if it is neglected from the outset, in which
case its little stock of vitality is not easily regained. Despite the brightness
of the weather there was a touch of chill in the air. Janet sat down in the
doorway of the shack and held the lamb in her lap, doubling her skirt up over it
in order to get it warm. Like any other lamb it submitted to whatever was done
to it. Now it lay so quietly in her lap, and looked so innocent and helpless,
that she felt permanently responsible for it. Especially as she did not know
what else to do with it. Presently she felt it growing warmer and warmer; then
it went to sleep.

Janet was tired. She sat there watching the prairie. In the sky the same dark
birds were soaring. The suspended effigy of Mr. Pete Harding, swayed by the
slightest breeze, moved its loose-hung arms and legs as if it were being visited
by the drunken spirit of its owner. At intervals the solitude found expression
in a sheep's automatic
baa
. The birds, which were buzzards, wheeled round
and round as the time passed and brought them nothing. One of them, tired of
wheeling round and round, sat on one of the posts of the corral and waited for
something to happen. These were the dusky angels that carried away the lamb's
body of the day before; she had seen its little white bones down at the foot of
the knoll. The present watcher, a stoop-shouldered, big, rusty-black bird, was
quite indifferent to human presence; he sat on his post like a usurer on his
high stool, calculating and immovable. Janet knew what was in his mind. She drew
the lamb a little closer and tucked her skirt in around it. Again she fell to
contemplating the prairieand the sky. The birds above seemed connected with the
machinery of Time. At unexpected moments a sheep gave voice to it all "in
syllable of dolour."

No, she would not really want to be a sheepherder; at least not alone. Last
night, or whenever Steve Brown was about, everything looked quite different.
Even now, she reflected, it was not so bad as it might be, and she did not
really mind it much; it was his place; he was just over the horizon somewhere;
and as long as it was his place she did not feel so lonesome. He had long ago
turned the flock about; she could picture him as he followed them along, nearer
and nearer. After a while he would be home.

She sat holding the lamb till the sun began to redden; then it occurred to
her that, under the circumstances, it was her duty to get supper. It was a
welcome thought; she would see what she could do. She put the orphan at the foot
of the bunk, drew the quilt over it and set to work.

It had now become apparent that she was destined to spend another night at
the shack; this, however, gave her no serious concern. It entered her mind only
in the form of the pleasant reflection that nobody would be worried by her
absence; the farmer's family would think she had gone to the county-seat and
then reached her destination at Merrill; the folks at Merrill would think she
was still at the school, all of which was very fortunate, and so she thought no
more about it. She was mainly concerned with the lambs, and particularly, at the
present moment, with supper. She spread down her two white napkins, which had
not seen service the night before, placing them corner to corner or diamondwise
on the ground; then she set the table and examined further into the resources of
the provision box. While the fire was getting itself under way, she completed
the effect by arranging some flowers in a cup and placing a nosegay upon the
bosom of nature. Before long there was a good bed of coals in the fire-hole.

Supper was just ready when the flock reached the knoll and began streaming up
the slope into the corral; then followed Steve Brown escorted by three sheep. He
carried four lambs, one on each arm, and two others whose heads protruded from
the breast of his coat.

"Four more!" she exclaimed, stepping forward to meet them. "Did you get all
there were, Mr. Brown?"

"I got all I saw, Miss Janet," he answered, casting a bright and intelligent
look at the fire-hole. "And I was afraid I had lost you. You got supper, did n't
you? That looks nice."

Steve Brown's conversation was largely illumined by the light of his eye;
likewise his silences, which were many. They were direct eyes which paid close
attention and shot their beams straight as along the barrel of a rifle. The live
interest of his look, and the slight but expressive play of his features, made
up quite well for the occasional scarcity of words.

"Yes, everything is all ready," she said.

"Well, I won't keep you waiting long."

When he had rid himself of the lambs he strode down the slope to the spring,
and presently she heard him "washing up" with more than his usual vigor. Pretty
soon he came up and bore a beaming countenance to supper.

Janet, as she poured the coffee and passed the hot bread, gave an account of
her day's work, telling first about the orphan and how she managed with him;
then she took up the other lambs, consecutively.

"I got four altogether," she ended.

"Oh, you should not have done that."

"No?"

There was mingled surprise and disappointment in her look; but mainly
disappointment.

"You could never have handled them that wayif they had been really coming
fast. It would take a wagon. There is no use of your working like that."

"But," she insisted, after a pause, "you could n't have carried more than
those four, could you?"

"Nothat was just about a load."

"And we got them all in, did n't we?"

"Oh, yesyes. What I meant was that you ought n't to work like that. But we
certainly did get them all in. And it's the only way we could have done it. As
it turned out, it was just the right thing to doall that was necessary." After
a moment's silence he felt he had not said quite enough. "You did first-class,"
he added. "The fact is, nobody could have done better."

Janet recovered her cheerfulness at once. She resumed her story of the day,
and then, as she got around to the subject of the lamb again, she went into the
shack and brought him out. Having been assured that he was looking well and was
likely to recover, she sat down at her place again with the lamb in her lap. He
lay there contentedly while she finished her supper.

"Yes," said Steve in answer to another of her questions, "lambs are kind of
cute. Sometimes I feel bad for a lamb myself when his mother won't have anything
to do with him. You ought to be out here later on, Miss Janet, when the lambs
have all been born and are starting to get frisky. That's when the fun begins."

"I have heard that lambs play together like children," she said.

"Oh, they do. You see they've got to learn jumping, too. And climbinglike a
goat. That first lamb will soon be so lively that plain running won't be good
enough for him. He 'll want to do fancy tricks."

"Nature teaches them to play," observed Janet. "That's to give them practice
and make them strong."

"I should say she did," said Steve, referring thus familiarly to Nature. "She
puts all sorts of notions into their heads."

"What do they do, for instance, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, for one thing, a lamb likes to practice jumping. You see, sheep don't
belong on prairies, like cattle. Cattle belong on prairies the same as buffalo,
but sheep don't; they belong on mountains; that's the reason the young ones are
so handy with their hoofs. They like to climb and jump, but on a prairie there
is n't any place to jump off of. Well, maybe some day a lamb will be galloping
and cavorting around, and he 'll come across a hunk of rock salt that has been
all licked off smooth on top and hollowed out. He 'll take a running jump at
that and land on it with all four hoofs in one spot and then he'll take a leap
off the top. Then, when he sees what a good circus actor he is, he will gallop
right around and do it over again; and the rest of his gang will start in and
follow him, because what one sheep does the rest have got to do. That way they
get to running in a circle round and round and taking turns at jumping."