Test Bank for Seeing Ourselves Classic Contemporary and Cross

Cultural Readings in Sociology Canadian 4th Edition Macionis

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1) Which of the following “sales pitches” is least likely to be made by a Canadian
sociology program?
a. A sociology degree will help you to get a job after graduation.
b. Students will be engaged and intellectually stimulated.
c. Students will be better prepared to improve the world around them.
d. Students will receive a broad, liberal arts education and a well‐rounded learning
experience.

Answer: b
Page Reference: 8 & 15

2) Promises to provide a broad and diverse liberal arts program through sociology vary
dramatically depending on :
a. the size of the institution
b. the tier of the university
c. the experience of professors
d. the length of the program

Answer: d
Diff: 1
Type: MC
Page Reference: 9

3) “First, arts courses are meant to broaden our minds and help us appreciate the
workings of our world.” Which promise is a sociology department trying to fulfill if it
uses this statement in its advertising?
a. Achieving a clear pathway to particular careers as a result of the credential
b. Enhancing students’ ability to improve the world around them through critical analysis
c. Receiving a broad, liberal arts education that would ensure a well‐rounded learning
experience
d. Mobilization of particular social values

Answer: c
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Reference: 9

4) A promise to improve social conditions is as likely to be made by departments

in primarily undergraduate universities as compared with doctoral comprehensive
universities.
a. half
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Canada Inc.
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b. equally
c. twice
d. Four times

Answer: c
Diff: 1
Type: MC
Page Reference: 10

5) A quote such as “Our faculty possess a wealth of expertise acquired through study and
research in a variety of countries and are internationally recognized in their areas” signals
that the department is being marketed as .
a. an elite program
b. an accessible
programc. an enriching program
d. a comprehensive program

Answer: a
Page Reference: 14

6) Promises of accessible material, patient and easy to understand teachers, and small
class sizes would be used to convince students that the sociology department is
.
a. an elite program
b. an accessible
programc. an enriching program
d. a comprehensive program

Answer: b
Diff: 2
Type: MC
Page Reference: 15

7) Write an essay in which you consider the degree to which specific market‐based tools
should be prioritized in the sociological curriculum. In your essay, address the potential
benefits and drawbacks of this focus. Also consider whether this would strip away the
potential for critical and independent thought.

Answer:

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Canada Inc.

2
8) Some writers have argued that researching and teaching generally conflict with each
other. Discuss the arguments made for and against this position and compare this to your
own experience as a sociology student.

Answer:

9) Discuss the various pitches that universities use to convince students of the merits of
their programs. In this essay contemplate which pitches you think are most influential to
contemporary students and why.

Answer:

10) Consider how broader socio-economic demographics might influence how a

particular sociology department markets its program.

Answer:

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Canada Inc.

3
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Joey sprang at me and seized my wrist. “That’s mine! That’s mine!” he
shouted. “Give it here, Mr. David—please.”
But I was staring at the writing on the back of the card. “For the boy who
goes to Sunday school,” Haidee had written in strong, clear characters.
Surely, the hand that had penned that line had more recently penned
other lines to me and beneath them signed the name of Janet Jones.
I had a letter in my pocket, and later I compared the writing on the
envelope with that on Joey’s card. And I smiled to myself; but
wonderingly. Still a doubt assailed me. I grew wary. And fate favored
me. When Wanza stopped her cart at the meadow bars en route to
Roselake one day, to pick up Joey, I saddled Buttons and rode to the
village in their wake. At the post-office I swung out of my saddle.
“Give me your letters, Wanza,” I suggested. “Don’t get down. I’ll post
them.”
Once inside the office I ran the letters through my fingers. There were
two letters addressed to Miss Janet Jones, Spokane, Washington, and the
writing was that with which I had grown familiar in Janet Jones’ letters
to me.
I was completely mystified. I rode home in a brown study. And then
suddenly I reached a solution. That night I wrote a letter. I took great
pains with its construction. And after Joey was in bed I paddled away
down the river in the light of the moon to the hollow stump among the
willows on the bank. I placed my letter to Haidee within the recess on a
soft bed of ferns and dried grass that I found there; and then I paddled
stealthily home.
I kept an even face when I greeted Haidee the following day, and she did
not betray by word or glance that she had received a communication
from me. But as I opened my lunch pail that night to give Joey some
doughnuts that Wanza had sent him, there on top was a small white
envelope addressed to me.
I read the letter after Joey was in bed and I had built up a fire of pine
cones on the hearth. It was a characteristic Janet Jones letter:
Dear Mr. Craftsman:
Once upon a time—which is the way I begin my fairy tales to
Joey—there was a certain foolish woman, whom we will call
Haidee, who lived all alone in the heart of a forest. She was a
 very headstrong young woman, full of whims and insane
impulses, or she never would have gone into the forest to live
alone. But she loved Nature passionately and she had suffered
and known heartache—and she felt that Nurse Nature could
assuage pain.
A big-hearted woodsman lived nearby in this same forest. He
swung his ax, and befriended her. He labored in the hot sun
felling trees that the headstrong woman might be safe in her
flimsy shack. But the woman taunted him, and when he
would have felled every tree that endangered her habitation
she stayed his hand. Then, one day, retribution overtook her.
A tree fell, and she was hewn down in her conceit and
foolhardiness. She was taken to the woodsman’s cabin by the
kind-hearted woodsman who rescued her. There she was
cared for tenderly, and the coals of fire burned her poor silly
head—so much so that, knowing she was a burden and an
expense to the woodsman, who, like most big-hearted honest
woodsmen, was desperately poor, she lay awake nights
planning how best to recompense him without wounding his
proud spirit. At last, she thought of a plan. And with the
connivance of a dear old-time friend in Spokane, carried it
out. Her friend gave her permission to sign her name to the
letters she wrote the woodsman. After the letters were written,
they were sent to the original Janet Jones, who forthwith
mailed them to the woodsman at Roselake. Janet Jones also,
naturally, received the letters which the woodsman wrote, and
in due time they were put into envelopes and addressed to the
headstrong woman, whom they did not fail to reach. The
cedar chest was the headstrong woman’s gift to Janet Jones,
who is an invalid, and a romanticist who enjoys beyond all
words any departure from the commonplace.
Am I forgiven, Mr. Fixing Man? And now, one word more.
You will not receive another letter from Janet Jones. And—I
pray you, come not too often to Hidden Lake—it is better so.
This was the missive which I read in the firelight. As I finished I
suddenly felt bereft. And I lay back in my chair and stared into the coals
with unseeing eyes, brooding miserably, groping in a misty sea of doubt
and unrest and feeble desire. Then Joey called me in his sleep. Just as I
was sinking utterly, I heard, “Mr. David, Mr. David,” and the cry of
appeal braced me, strengthened the man in me. I went in to him as a
sinner into a sanctuary, and the kiss he gave me sleepily was a salve that
solaced and sustained me throughout the trying night.
I had finished the improvements on Haidee’s cabin at this time; so I gave
over going to Hidden Lake in prompt obedience to the request my
wonder woman had made in her letter. But I wrote an answer to the letter
and placed it in the old stump. I assured her that I would respect her
wishes, and I begged her to let me know the instant I could serve her in
any way, promising her that never a day should pass without my going to
the secret post-office.
I had advertised my cedar chests in the magazines during the summer,
and orders began to pour in, so that I was kept busy in my workshop.
Those were busy days in the house as well, for, with the beginning of
September, Joey had started to school at Roselake, and many of the small
duties he had taken upon his young shoulders devolved upon me.
Oh, the day on which Joey started to school!
I dressed him carefully that morning, with all the trepidation of an over-
fond parent, and I admonished him concerning his demeanor in the
school-room until I am sure his small head must have been in a whirl,
and his little heart in a flutter of apprehension.
“I’ll do my best, Mr. David, dear,” he said bravely. “You said yourself
they can’t no one do more.” He hesitated and looked at me, reddening
painfully. “And if the teacher asks me who am I—and who’s—who’s my
father—what am I to tell her?”
My hand closed on his shoulder fiercely. “Tell her you are Mr. Dale’s
boy, from Cedar Dale—tell her your name is Joey Dale,” I cried. The
look on his face had stabbed me.
He considered, looking into my eyes awesomely as I took his chin in my
hand.
“If I have the Dale part, couldn’t I have the David, too?” he suggested.
“Hm! Then we’d be big David and little David.”
“David Dale, the second,” I said, poking him in the ribs.
“But there couldn’t be any David Dale, the second. There couldn’t never
be but one real David Dale. But there could be a little David.”
A little David!
That was a dragging day. I missed the lad which ever way I turned. And
his words to me, when he leaped to my arms from old Buttons’ back that
night! “It was fine! I liked it, really and truly. But, oh, Mr. David, I ’most
knew you was lonely and missing me!”
Every morning I walked to the edge of the meadow, let down the bars for
old Buttons, and watched Joey ride away, his sturdy little figure jouncing
up and down in the saddle, his brave, bright face turned back to me over
his shoulder, with rare affection beaming from big big brown eyes, as he
waved and waved to me until a bend of the road hid him from my sight.
One memorable morning in the latter part of September, as I was
tightening the saddle girths, he bent down to me, and as I lifted my head
he surprised me with a quick shame-faced salute of moist lips on my
forehead.
“You’re a good Mr. David,” he said patronizingly. “And I ain’t yours
either—not blood kin.”
I hugged the little lad to me—a sudden fierce warmth of affection
stirring my sluggish halting heart that had grown weary lately of life’s
complexities.
“You’re my boy, just the same,” I assured him.
“They can’t anybody get me away from you—can they?” he asked
anxiously, and I saw genuine consternation in his eyes.
I laughed and hugged him tighter. “I guess not,” I bragged. “Let them try.
Jingles would eat them up.”
“And we’d hide, wouldn’t we?”
“We surely would.”
“And—and we’d shoot at them from the rushes.”
I know not why Joey’s words should have irked me, but the day seemed
long, and I was glad when I heard the soft thud of Buttons’ hoofs on the
turf outside the cabin promptly at the accustomed hour. I was building
the kitchen fire, but I straightened up, stepped to the door, and threw it
wide.
Buttons stood with his bridle over his head, his nose sniffing the ground,
but no Joey sprang from the saddle into my eager arms. The horse was
riderless.
All Roselake joined in the search for Joey, after I had ascertained that the
lad was not with Haidee, and the search was prolonged far into the night.
The school-master had seen Joey ride away at the close of school, and I
argued that Buttons must have come straight home. At dawn the search
was resumed. For miles in each direction the searching party spread out,
but at night, totally disheartened, the kindly neighbors disbanded, and
Joey’s case was left in the hands of the police.
 CHAPTER XX
“PERHAPS I SHALL GO AWAY”
ALONE the next day I took up the search for Joey, beating back and
forth between Roselake and Cedar Dale, and penetrating to Wallace and
Wardner. It was to Wanza that I spoke my conviction at last, sitting my
cayuse on the river road, while she sat stiff and tearful-eyed in her cart,
pale even beneath the pink-lined umbrella.
“It looks to me, Wanza girl,” I said wearily, “like a plain case of
kidnapping.”
“But who would kidnap him, Mr. Dale?” Wanza queried pitifully.
“Why—that’s the question,” I returned. “Have you ever seen him talking
to any one—any stranger—when you have met him going and returning
from school?”
She shook her head. “Once,” she replied, “Joey was with me, and Mr.
Batterly stopped us. He asked me all about Joey—seeming so keen! And
I told him—thinking it no harm—just how a dying woman gave him to
you, saying he was a waif that had been picked up after a storm over on
the Sound by her dead brother, who had been a fisherman.”
“Where is Batterly now,” I asked.
“Gone away—this week past.”
“Oh, well,” I sighed, “we’ll acquit him. I’m sure he was not over fond of
Joey.” After a pause I asked brusquely: “Where has he gone?”
“I don’t know—sure I don’t, Mr. Dale. The last I heard of him he was
going to hire a swift-water boat and a poler, and try the swift-water
fishing above St. Joe.”
“Then he hasn’t left the country,” I said. And my heart sank leaden and
my hate of the man boiled up in my veins fiercely, as I pictured him still
skulking about, a menace to Haidee’s peace of mind.
The time went very heavily past. All my days and many nights were
spent in the saddle, and the evenings that I passed at Cedar Dale were
consumed in feverish plans for the scoutings that I made. I did not even
now attempt to visit Haidee at Hidden Lake; but one morning, at sunrise,
hearing a soft tap on my door, I opened to see Wanza standing there with
a covered basket on her arm.
“I saw your light last night,” she quavered. “I have brought you some
good nourishing food. I can see you’re not cooking for yourself. You’re
growing white and thin.”
Her womanly act in coming thus to offer me comfort stirred me
strangely, appealed to the finest fibre in my nature. Her simplicity, her
self-forgetfulness made me falter at her feet.
But at last I gave over my scoutings. I made a cedar chest for Joey’s
room, and in this I placed all his little kickshaws, his few clothes, and his
flute, along with the gay Indian blanket he had reveled in, and the quilt
Wanza had pieced for him. The room thus became to me a sort of shrine.
And finding me here at the close of a long day with tears of which I was
not ashamed in my eyes, Wanza broke down and sobbed beside me.
“I’d like to kill whoever it is as has taken Joey away,” she cried,
brandishing a resentful fist.
“If we knew any one had taken him,” I said, thoughtfully. “Sometimes I
think—I think, Wanza, that Joey is dead.”
“I don’t think so! No, indeed!” Wanza returned with thrilling
earnestness. “Oh, I feel sure he ain’t dead! He’ll be found—some day.
He sure will, Mr. Dale.”
She helped me by her sturdy optimism.
Soon after this Wanza and I fell into the habit of tramping through the
gleaming golden woods together almost daily, breathing the crisp sweet
autumn air. Wanza in her bright sweater, with her tawny hair, and the
carmine in her cheek flitted in and out of the wood paths like a forest
dryad, exclaiming at every frost-touched leaf, and reveling in the painted
glory about us.
“But the birds are gone,” she said, a tear in her tones, as we looked into
an empty king-bird’s nest one day. “I love the king-birds—they’re sleek
dandies—that’s what they are! Oh, Mr. Dale, what a heartache an empty
nest gives me! The dear little birds are gone—”
“And Joey is not here,” I ended sadly.
After awhile I went on: “Yes, summer has gone. It is the most evanescent
time of the year. It slips and slips away—and just as you grasp it and
thrill to its sweetness it melts into—this—as happiness merges into
sorrow.”
Her face quivered, and her eyes came to mine. “I guess that is so,” she
said in a low tone.
Looking in Wanza’s face lately I always turned away. I did so now. The
look of questioning I found there—the mute appeal—the suffering—
these unmanned me. But it grew to be a strange satisfaction to be with
her, through long crisp daylight hours, in the hush of pink sunsets, in the
gilded autumn twilights, while we rested after a meagre supper cooked
over a camp fire, chatting desultorily, and watching the big pale stars
came out to lie like white-tipped marguerites on the purple bosom of the
sky above our heads.
One day I spoke my thought.
“I am thinking, Wanza—perhaps I shall go away.”
We were in the heart of the woods. A tinkling, sly little brook made the
forest musical, the rustle and purr of the pines sounded about us like
fluty organ notes. Wanza’s eyes were lifted to the sprightly shivering
leaves of a cottonwood, and her face was very still. She did not move as
I spoke, and I repeated my sentence.
“I thought you’d go,” she said. She spoke harshly.
“I can’t stop on here without Joey. I can’t bear it,” I said, haltingly.
“But I’ve got to stay on without either of you—and bear it.”
I saw her eyes. I recoiled at the depth of pain revealed.
“Mr. Dale,” she said gropingly, after a pause, “where are you going?”
“I don’t know, Wanza. But inaction is intolerable. I must be doing
something. I must get away for awhile, at least. It is better.”
Wanza’s eyes were very bright. Her hands that were smoothing a maple
leaf were trembling. Her voice sounded dry and hard as she asked:
“When do you reckon you’ll go?”
“Why, child, I do not know! Each day I say to myself I cannot bear
another.”
“It’ll be the same wherever you are.”
“Perhaps so, Wanza,” I sighed. And then because I knew the tears were
on her cheeks, I sprang to my feet, saying: “This may be our last day in
the woods together, who knows? Come, let us try to forget—let us make
the best of what we have.”
Wanza rose. She came close to me. When our eyes met she gave a cry:
“If you go you may never come back!”
“Never fear. I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I replied, and I am afraid
my voice was bitter. And when she put her hand on my arm I shook it off
and would have strode away, but again as in the woods on the occasion
of our gipsying I saw her face close to my own, and caught my breath in
marvel. No, there was never such a girl-face! Such an elf-face! I stooped
suddenly and framed the face with my hands. What were her wonderful
eyes saying, back of all the tears, all the mystery? Why—when I was in
love with Haidee—did they draw me like a lodestar? Why now and then
did she stir me in this strange fashion till I gazed and gazed, and needs
must curb my will to keep from taking her in my arms and crushing her
against my heart?
I had never faced the question. I did not care to face it now. I put it away
for some future time, feeling vaguely that it remained to be reckoned
with.
“I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I repeated.
“And I am glad of that,” she whispered.
She pressed nearer to me, and I released her face, and drew her slowly
within the circle of my arms. But when I held her so, when the floating
hair meshes were just beneath my chin, and her face brushed my sleeve,
I steadied myself.
“Wanza,” I said, “I am almost glad, too, that I have no other home. When
I think of the good friends I have here—you and your father and Father
O’Shan—I realize that I am ungrateful to despise my humble place
among you. Keep it for me, little girl, and I shall come back. Yes, I shall
come back better equipped for the future among you. If it must be
without Joey—” I hesitated and bit my lip—“without Joey,” I continued
more firmly, “I shall at least try to earn your respect by holding up my
head, and forging on to some goal. I shall attain to something at last, I
hope. And I hope I shall be able to serve my neighbors in many ways,
and make myself needed in the community.”
I held her for a moment after saying this, and then I bent down and for
the first time in my life kissed her. But it was on the brow that I kissed
her. And I am sure no brother could have saluted her more respectfully.
She drew back. Her head fell against my shoulder. I saw deep into her
splendid eyes,—deep, deep. Back of all the tears and the smiles and the
mystery I read at last what they were saying. I read—and I was humbled
and abashed. I knew the truth at last. Wanza loved me.
I saw clearly now, indeed. I recalled Father O’Shan’s words: “Be careful
in your dealings with that child.” I had been blind, and a fool. I blamed
myself, and I hated myself. I stood stupidly staring into the face so near
my own until with a sudden wrench Wanza jerked away from me, and
ran on down the purpling wood-aisle before me, dashing the tears from
her eyes as she fled.
I walked home slowly, astounded and perplexed by the revelation I had
had.
 CHAPTER XXI
FATE’S FINAL JAVELIN
THAT night in my lonely cabin I fell ill, and burned with fever, and
shook with ague so that I was unable to drag myself about the cabin, but
lay all the next day and the next in my bunk. The following day my fever
left me magically; and late in the afternoon I arose, fed and curried my
half-starved cayuse and, mounting, rode away beneath the berry-
reddened yews to the trail that led to Haidee.
I dismounted at the rustic pergola at the rear of the cabin, tethered my
cayuse and walked around to the front door. The door was closed, and a
silence that was almost oppressive brooded over the place. I ran up the
steps, and a curious premonition that Haidee had gone away sickened me
as I rapped on the panel. Terrified at receiving no response, I turned the
handle, pressed forward, and caught at the casement for support in my
weakness. I peered in, and at the sight I saw my knees all but gave way
so that I swung about like a loose sail in a sudden breeze.
On the floor lay Randall Batterly in a ghastly pool of blood. His face was
upturned to the cold October sunlight. His lips were opened in a half
snarl, his full lids were wide apart over his rolled back, terrible eyes. He
was bleeding from a wound in his chest. And Haidee stood above him,
gazing down upon him, gray horror painted on her face.
She heard my step and turned, and I caught the metallic thud as the
revolver she had been holding dropped to the bare floor. She stared at
me, put out her hand as if to thrust me back. I saw fear in her face.
“It is you! It is you!” she breathed.
She continued to stare at me with big gaunt eyes.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to keep the horror out of my tones. “It is I.”
She shuddered and collapsed to her knees, clinging to the door frame as a
drowning man clutches and grips a bulwark. The pupils of her eyes were
dilated with terror and despair until the purple iris was eclipsed, and they
stared black and empty as burnt-out worlds.
“He is dead—dead,” she whispered. “He can’t speak, or move.”
I picked up the revolver and laid it on the table, and then I crossed to the
rigid form on the floor. I knelt and pressed my ear to his heart. I lifted his
hand; it fell back inertly. Yes, it was true. Randall Batterly was gone past
recall, facing the great tribunal above, with who knew what black secret
in his heart.
“We must get a physician,” I murmured dully.
Haidee crept to my side. Her poor face was blanched and twisted till she
looked like a half-dead thing.
“Who could have done this—” I stammered, in a voice that sounded
driveling and uncertain in my own ears.
Again that dumb look of distress in her eyes, and she stood as if carved
in granite.
“My dear—my dear, you must come away—this is too much for you,” I
continued hoarsely. I took her poor cold hands in mine. And then I
turned and faced the door with a curious certainty that some one was
looking at me, and I saw old Lundquist’s rat eyes peering in on us from
the doorway.
He said not one word—only stared and stared at the dead man on the
floor, and at the abject living creatures standing over him; and then he
crept away like a sliding shadow, and the sunlight brightened the place
again. But in that grim room Haidee had fallen face downward, stark and
stiff, and her wild scream as she sank echoed and re-echoed in my ears
for days.
I brought water, I bathed her face, I chafed her hands; but the moments
passed and she did not revive, and twilight fell, as alone, in the presence
of death I wrestled with the stupor that held her. And there they found
me—the sheriff and old Lundquist.
“For God’s sake, lend a hand here,” I cried imploringly. And then I stood
up. “Gentlemen,” I said, “this—dead man is Mrs. Batterly’s husband. I
believe this to be a suicide—I found him lying just as you see him a
short while ago. Mrs. Batterly had just discovered him, I believe. She is
—as you see—in no condition to be questioned.”
The sheriff hesitated. I had known the man for years, and I saw a swift
scepticism darken his keen eyes as they searched my face. He glanced at
Haidee and then at the revolver lying on the table. He reached over,
picked up the weapon and examined it.
“This revolver is loaded in only four of its chambers. The fifth has a
discharged cartridge. Was this lying on the table when you came in,
Dale?”
I spoke hoarsely. “I put it there. It had fallen to the floor.”
Old Lundquist crawled closer. “That ban Mrs. Batterly’s revolver,” he
mumbled, “I see her have it—it ban on the table most o’ the time. Thar
be a letter on it—to mark it like.”
The sheriff’s finger traced the outline of the shining letter on the polished
surface of the weapon. He stood irresolutely, ruminating.
“Come!” I ordered brusquely. “This lady must be seen to.” And as
neither man made a move to assist me, I lifted Haidee in my arms. I felt
her stir. Her eyes opened suddenly. She looked at old Lundquist and the
sheriff, then up at me affrightedly. Her hand clutched my arm. She
cowered, and a tremor shook her from head to foot.
“These men—why are they here?” she asked faintly.
“Gentlemen—” I was beginning, when the sheriff stopped me.
“Mrs. Batterly,” he said, clearing his throat, and speaking raspingly, “this
is your revolver?”
“Why, yes—” Haidee drew in her breath sharply—“why, yes,” she
admitted.
I felt her hand tighten its hold on my arm.
“It is mine, surely,” she continued, as no one spoke. She looked from one
to the other appealingly. “I am fond of shooting at a mark. I used it only
this noon. I left it on the table after lunch when I went into the woods to
sketch. I heard a shot fired soon after I left—but I thought nothing of it—
rabbit hunters pass the cabin daily. When I came back to the cabin after a
time I—I found my—husband on the floor, as you see him—” She
halted, something in the eyes she saw fixed upon her caused her face to
whiten. “Why,” she stammered—“why—you don’t think—think I—”
“Mrs. Batterly,” the sheriff broke in quickly, “I arrest you for the murder
of your husband, Randall Batterly.”
I shall never forget the groping look she turned on me; the dumb appeal
that struck to the center of my heart and set it quivering—the question in
the big deep eyes, clear and pure as a rillet in the sun.
I don’t know how I gave her into the sheriff’s custody. I recall that my
fists were doubled and that I mouthed useless imprecations, and that old
Lundquist strove to reason with me, his lank arms wrapped about me
restrainingly, as the sheriff bore Haidee away in his gig. I recall climbing
into my saddle and riding away, the echo of Haidee’s parting injunction
in my ears: “Find Wanza for me, please. She may be able to help me.”
And I recall that old Lundquist stood shaking his fist after me in the
pergola.
Little I cared for old Lundquist or the pummeling I gave him. I dug my
heels into Buttons’ sides. His hoofs fell with soft thuds on the fallen
leaves that, imbedded in the damp soil, made a brown mosaic of my
path. The bracing air was in my face, but I rode limp and flaccid, with
cold beads of sweat upon my brow. “Oh, God,” I groaned, “Oh, God!
Oh, God!” But I could not pray. I only raised my eyes. Overhead the
afterglow shot the sky with rose and silver, and an apricot moon was
rising over the mountains hooded in white mist. I kept my eyes lifted as I
rode on through the soft dusk to Roselake in quest of Wanza.
But Wanza was not at her father’s house. When questioned Captain Grif
said she had not been home since noon. He had supposed she was with
Mrs. Batterly at Hidden Lake. I left a note for the girl to be given her as
soon as she came in, saying nothing to old Grif of the tragedy at Hidden
Lake, and then, thoroughly disheartened, I took the road for Cedar Dale.
I made short work of reaching home. I put Buttons into a gallop, and
rode like Tam o’ Shanter through the night, whipped on by the witches of
adversity. I reached the meadow. I rode through the stubble. The
unlighted cabin seemed to exhale an almost inexorable malevolency as I
came upon it. It greeted me—empty and pitiless. Even my cupboard was
bare.
Toward midnight, unable to breathe the atmosphere of the cabin, racked
with despair, and agog with restlessness, I stole out, clumsy footed, to
the willows on the river bank. Here I found my canoe. I slid it into the
water, stepped in and paddled away, seeking surcease from my thoughts
beneath the tent of night.
The friendly current bore me on. Soon I came opposite the old
cottonwood stump, gleaming white among the shadows. I laid aside my
paddle and drifted along close to the high willow-bordered banks, the
cold, clear stars above me. The silence and the motion of the canoe were
soporific. I was weak and worn from my recent illness. My head kept
nodding. I closed my eyes. After a time I slept.
The hoot-hoot of an owl awakened me. I raised my head and looked
about me. The darkness had deepened. The stars had a redder glow and
the mountains stood up like invincible agate gates against the black sky,
shutting in this little bit of the great world. The night air was cold. I
shivered and jerked my arms mightily to induce circulation. And then
hunger assailed me and I began to think of food.
I took my paddle and swung my canoe about. Suddenly, as one
remembers a feast when hard pressed for sustenance, I recalled the
doughnuts and goodies that Haidee had been wont to place in the hollow
stump for Joey. Well, I knew the cache was empty now.
I reached the stump. I thrust my hand gropingly within the recess,
smiling whimsically at my fatuous impulse. My fingers encountered a
small object, smooth and heavy to the touch. I drew it forth. It was a six-
chambered revolver, loaded in five of its chambers. The sixth chamber
contained a discharged cartridge.
A tremor ran over me. Slow horror chilled my veins. I sickened as my
fingers passed over the cold polished surface, recalling the livid face of
the dead man in the cabin. Mechanically, at last, I slipped the weapon
into my pocket and took up the paddle.
I slept no more that night. The next morning with an attorney I visited
Haidee in her cell in the village jail. My poor friend was stricken. Her
pallor was marked, and her great soft eyes held the pitiful appeal of a
hunted deer. She told the attorney her story straight. A tear rolled down
her cheek, and she faced me with the question, barely voiced:
“You believe in my innocence?”
And I, shaken and undone, could only cry: “Believe in you? Oh, my
child—do I believe in myself? I know you are innocent.”
I produced the revolver I had found in the hollow stump, and the attorney
pounced on it eagerly. “Here is the evidence, indeed,” he said,
thoughtfully. “I think we shall prove that the bullet that killed Randall
Batterly was fired from this very weapon. Mrs. Batterly’s revolver is of a
different caliber.”
As I left the jail I met Captain Grif. He plucked at my sleeve. His face
worked. “Wanza ain’t come home yet, Mr. Dale,” he quavered.
I was startled. “That is strange,” I said.
“She’s always stayed to Hidden Lake nights. I warn’t surprised when she
didn’t s-show up last night thinkin’ she’d gone peddlin’ in the afternoon,
and then gone on to Hidden Lake about the time you was askin’ for her,
may be. But I jest heard about Mrs. Batterly bein’ arrested yesterday.”
His voice broke. “For God’s sake, Mr. Dale, w-where can Wanza be?”
“Where can she be?” I echoed to myself.
Two days passed. Wanza did not return. To find her became my chief
object in life, but all my inquiries were fruitless. And then on the third
day, Captain Grif came to Cedar Dale.
“I been thinkin’ that Wanza may be with Sister Veronica at the old
Mission near De Smet,” he quavered, tears standing in his poor dim eyes.
“Have you seen Father O’Shan?” I asked quickly.
He shook his head. “Not for days, Mr. Dale, for God’s sake f-find my
gal! F-find her, my boy, find her! The Mission’s the place to look for her.
Why, when Wanza was a little girl, and we l-lived at Blue Lake, she used
to run to Sister Veronica with everything, jest l-like a child to its
mother.”
Acting on this information I set out post-haste that very morning for the
old Mission. The stage had passed an hour before, Buttons had fallen
lame, but I was in a desperate mood and would brook no delay. The
current was with me, and I slid down the river seven miles and made a
portage to Blue Lake before noon. A creek flows into Blue Lake, and I
followed the creek to its head. It was well past the noon hour by then,
and I secreted my craft in a tangle of birches and struck across country
on foot. I had a map in my pocket and a compass, and I went forward
hopefully.
The old Mission stands on an elevation overlooking a pastoral valley.
Gray and solitary it looms, a gilded cross shining on its blue dome. But
the way to it, unless one follows the main traveled road, I found to be as
hard as the narrow path that leads to righteousness. Ever and anon I
glimpsed the gilded cross between the pine tops, but I floundered on
through thickets, waded streams, and beat about in bosky jungles,
without striking the road I sought.
Toward evening when I lifted my eyes, the shining cross had eluded me.
It had comforted me to have it set like a sign against the sky. But I kept
on doggedly. The thoughts that went with me were long, hard thoughts.
It seemed to me that through all my unfortunate life I had been faring on
to meet this final javelin of fate—to have the woman I adored held in the
leash of the law—to realize my helplessness—to suffer a thousand
deaths a day in my impotency—this was the denouement prepared for
me—awaiting me—when, as a lad of twenty-four, I had accepted the
stigma of a crime of which I was not guilty and hidden away as a guilty
man may hide! The only green oasis in the arid waste of my life had
been Joey, and suddenly my heart cried out for the lad who had been my
solace and delight. I dropped down on a log, and lay supine through long
moments. I thought of Wanza and hoped and prayed I might find her.
Haidee’s face came before me with its look of pure white courage. I
opened the book of my life still wider and turned to earlier pages. I grew
bitter and morose. But, gradually, as I lay there, the searing hurts and
perplexities and injustices sank back into the hush of my soul’s twilight,
and I tore out the blurred pages and treasured only the white ones on
which the names of Joey and Wanza and Haidee were written. Hope
stirred in my heart.
It was sunset when I roused at last, crawled to a nearby stream that came
slipping along with endless song, and drank thirstily, and laved my face.
As I knelt, I saw what seemed to be a deserted cabin, half hidden among
scrub pines in the draw below me. I hailed it, stumbled down the
overgrown trail, and approached it.
The door was closed, the solitary window boarded over. I tried the door,
found it fast, and rattled it tentatively. A voice cried: “Who is there?”
My heart gave a violent leap.
I pressed against the door, and swallowed hard before I could control my
tones.
“It is a—a man who is in need of food and shelter,” I answered.
“It is Mr. David! Mr. David!” the voice shrieked. And such a lusty shout
arose that the rafters of the old shack fairly trembled.
As for me I leaned in dazed suspense against the door, impatiently
waiting for my lad to open to me.
“Mr. David—dear, dear Mr. David—I can’t open the door! He’s taken
the key.” I heard then.
“Who has taken the key, Joey?”
“The big man. He locked me in. Mr. David—can’t you get me out?”
I placed my shoulder against the door. With all my strength I gave heave
after heave until the rotten old boards gave way. They splintered into
fragments, and through the jagged opening crept Joey, my lad—to throw
himself into my arms and cling and cling about my neck, biting his lips
to keep the tears from falling. But my tears wet the boyish head I pressed
against my breast. I sank to my knees and gathered him into my arms,
and rocked back and forth, crooning over him, womanishly:
“Joey—Joey! Little lad—dear little lad!”
Soon after I lay in the bunk in the interior of the one-room shack and
Joey cooked a substantial meal for me; and when it was ready, I ate
ravenously while he hung over me, his hand stealing up to close about
my hand from time to time.
When I had finished I dropped back into the bunk. “Now then, lad,” I
said.
And Joey began his tale by asking: “Mr. David, am I the big man’s boy?”
“What do you mean, Joey?”
“He says I’m his boy. He says I was lost in a shipwreck—when I was a
teenty baby.”
I covered my face with my hand. “Go on,” I bade him, hoarsely.
“One day he saw the mark on my chest. I’d been fightin’ at school, Mr.
David—and coming home I was crying and sorry, and Wanza, she came
along, in her cart, and she washed my face and neck and tidied me. The
big man came up—and said: ‘Good day, young man?’ And when he saw
the funny red mark on my chest he asked Wanza, ‘Who is this boy?’ And
Wanza, she told him how you took me just a three year old when a
woman a few miles down river died, and how the woman got me over on
the Sound of her brother who was a fisherman and had picked me up on
the beach one time after a storm. The big man kept asking questions and
questions, and Wanza told him the woman’s brother was dead, too. And,
at last, Wanza got tired of talking and she just said: ‘Good day, Mr.
Batterly,’ and told me to get in the cart, and we drove off.”
Joey paused and his soft eyes flashed. I was too greatly overcome to
make any comment, and I lay back, feeling that my world was crashing
in chaos about my head. After awhile the lad continued:
“That day when he—he stole me, Mr. David, I was coming home from
school along the river road. He stopped me and he said he was my father
and I must go with him. ‘Get off your horse,’ he said. I got off Buttons,
but I said: ‘No, I’ll not go with you. I’ll ask Mr. David, first!’ The big
man laughed and said you’d find out soon enough. I kicked and kicked,
Mr. David, when he grabbed me by the arm. And then another big man
came out of the bushes, and they tied up my mouth and they carried me
to a boat and locked me up in a funny little cupboard. By and by I went
to sleep. Then one morning I woke up and I was here. I heard the big
man say to the other man: ‘I’ve got him, Bill. My wife’ll have to come to
terms now.’”
Again Joey paused, and I writhed and was silent. Joey looked at me
commiseratingly and went on:
“’Most a week ago he told me he was going to fetch Bell Brandon. ‘You
be a good boy,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bring her.’ And he went away; but he
locked the door, ’cause he said he couldn’t trust me. I ’most knew you’d
come, Mr. David! The minute you knocked I knew you’d come for me.
And I’m going away with you—and you’ll punish the big man, won’t
you? And I’m not his boy, am I, Mr. David?”
“If you are his boy,” I said huskily, “you belong to Bell Brandon, too.”
And with my words a terrible blinding despair swept over me. I was too
steeped in lassitude and despondency to reason, too greatly fatigued to
wonder. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the wall.
After awhile a blanket was drawn carefully over me. I felt a warm breath
on my face. My eyes opened straight into Joey’s, and I reached out and
took his hand in mine. “Joey,” I whispered, seeing shining drops on his
cheeks, “Joey, I’m in trouble. I must think, lad! The big man won’t be
back, lad—he’ll not return at all—I know that—you will never see him
again. But after awhile you and Bell Brandon will be very happy
together—after awhile.”
“What do you mean, Mr. David? Ain’t I going to live at Cedar Dale
again, with you, and Jingles and Buttons, same as ever? Oh, ain’t I, Mr.
David?” my little lad cried out, and his tears fell fast.
I slept that night with Joey at my side in the narrow bunk, and I awoke at
intervals, and stared out through the glimmering casement at the moon-
silvered trees. Weary as I was, my cogitations kept me from repose. I
promised myself that I would push on to the Mission in the morning.
Joey should go with me, and the stage should bear us back to Roselake,
although this would necessitate a delay. I moved, and Joey’s hand
fluttered out toward me in his sleep. He whispered my name.
I slept again, waking to see the curtain at the window I had opened,
pushed aside, and a face peering in at me in the cold gray light of
morning. It was withdrawn and a hand fell on the door. I looked down at
Joey’s tousled head pillowed on my arm. Laying him gently down on the
pillow, I arose and took my revolver from my pocket.
“What do you want?” I demanded, throwing open the door.
The man standing there put out his hand quickly. It was Father O’Shan.
“You have come from the Mission?” I gasped.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me news of Wanza, then? Is she at the Mission?”
He took the revolver from my grasp, looked at me curiously, and placed
his hand on my shoulder.
“Yesterday, when I passed here, I thought I heard a child sobbing. I was
too greatly overwrought at the time to attach importance to it. In the
night I recalled the boarded over window and I could not rest. I came to
investigate.”
He hesitated. I waited, and he came a step closer.
“David Dale,” he said, with evident reluctance, “Wanza Lyttle has
confessed to being implicated in the murder of Randall Batterly. I took
her to Roselake myself yesterday. She has given herself up. Mrs. Batterly
was set at liberty a few hours later.”
I reeled, and sat down weakly on the steps. “Not Wanza! Not Wanza!” I
kept repeating over and over.
Something gripped me by the throat, tears in my eyes smarted them. I
clasped my head with my arms, hiding my face. I felt drowning in deep
currents. That brave girl—insouciant, cheery, helpful Wanza! What had
she to do with the murder of Randall Batterly?
 CHAPTER XXII
RENUNCIATION
JOEY and I slept that night at Cedar Dale, and the next morning as early
as might be I obtained permission to visit Wanza in the village jail. We
looked into each other’s eyes for a beating moment, and then I had her
hands in mine and was whispering, “Courage, courage, Wanza.”
The color surged into her white cheeks, and her eyes blazed.
“Do you think I did it, David Dale?” she whispered painfully.
“Wanza—child—what sort of confession have you made?”
“I told them I was the only one who knew anything about it. I told them
it was a shot from my revolver that killed Mr. Batterly. They showed me
the revolver Mrs. Batterly’s attorney had, that you found in the hollow
stump, and I swore it was mine. And so they put me in here to wait for a
trial. But they let her go. It was on her account that I told what I did. I
never said I killed him—never!”
“My poor, poor, girl!”
“Hush! Please don’t! Don’t say a word! Oh, I don’t want to break down
—I been through a lot—a lot! I’ll tell you all now—all, Mr. Dale! It was
like this. That day at Hidden Lake Randall Batterly found me there
alone. He was drunk—very drunk. I had just come in and I thought Mrs.
Batterly had gone to Roselake as she had intended. I told him so when he
asked for her. And—when he thought there was no one about he began
saying all sorts of silly things. Truly, Mr. Dale, I had never spoken to him
but just three times in the village—just to be civil. But he said some
downright disgusting things that day, and he put his arms around me, and
he held me tight, and he—he kissed me twice—oh, so fierce like! though
I struck him hard. I got frightened. I saw he was so drunk he could
scarcely stand. Mrs. Batterly’s revolver was lying on the table. I
motioned to it. ‘Don’t touch me again, Mr. Batterly,’ I screamed, ‘or I’ll
shoot myself.’ I think I was almost out of my head with fright. I turned to
run from the room when he caught my arm. I had my own revolver in the
pocket of my sweater coat, and I pulled it out quick as a flash. ‘Come,’
he said, looking ugly, ‘give me that revolver! Give it here! Don’t be a
fool.’ We had a scuffle and he had just wrenched the revolver away from
me, when, oh, Mr. Dale, it slipped from his hands and struck the floor
hard, and went off. He had been grinning at me because he had got the
revolver in his own hands, and he stood there still grinning for a second
—oh, an awful second—and then he just crumpled up and dropped on
the floor at my feet, dead, dead, dead!”
It was impossible for Wanza to go on for a moment or two. And when
she continued, at length, after a paroxysm of sobbing, my arm was
around her, and her poor drooping head was against my shoulder.
“When I saw that he was dead, Mr. Dale, I picked up my revolver, and I
ran as fast as I could out of the cabin and hid in the underbrush by the
lake. By and by I spied Mrs. Batterly’s canoe, and I got in and paddled
away as fast as I could. I remembered the hollow stump, because I’d
gone there for Mrs. Batterly with fudge for Joey; and when I saw it I just
popped the revolver inside. Then I hid the canoe among the willows and
started to walk to Roselake. I kept to the woods along the river road until
I heard the stage coming, and then I thought ‘I’ll go to Sister Veronica at
the Old Mission.’ And I ran out and hailed it, and got in. When the stage
got to De Smet that evening a man got in, and I heard him tell the driver
that Mrs. Batterly had been arrested for the murder of her husband. So
then I knew I had to tell the truth and take the blame or they’d keep her
in jail and drag her through an awful trial, and I knew what that would
mean to you, Mr. Dale.”
I pressed her head closer against my shoulder. “Wanza,” I said, “you are
a noble girl.”
The tears welled up in the cornflower blue eyes.
“Oh, Mr. Dale, you do believe that Mr. Batterly was most respectful to
me whenever I met him in the village! He was very polite and respectful.
I never spoke to him but three times. Once dad was with me, and once
Joey, and once I was alone.”
There was something piteous in her asseveration.
“I am sure he was respectful, child.”
“I wanted to die the minute he spoke too bold to me when he found me
there alone at Hidden Lake.”
“I well know that, Wanza.”
“Marna of the quick disdain,
 Starting at the dream of stain!”
I cleared my throat and spoke as hopefully as I could. “Let us forget as
well as we can, little girl. Let us look forward to your release. You will
tell the truth at the trial, and you will be believed. And then—you will
forget—you will start all over again! You must let me help you, Wanza,
in many ways. I have a piece of good news for you even now. I have
found Joey.”
But I did not tell her Joey’s story, until my next visit.
I learned from Haidee’s attorney that Randall Batterly had been buried in
Roselake cemetery, and that Mrs. Olds had been sent for and was staying
with Haidee. That afternoon Buttons carried a double burden over the
trail to Hidden Lake. I went in alone to Haidee, leaving Joey in the
woods. My heart was too overcharged for free speech, but I told Haidee
that I had found Joey in an abandoned cabin and I told her all that Wanza
had told me of the part she had played in the accidental shooting of
Randall Batterly, and later I said to her:
“I have something strange to communicate to you. But first, I am going
to ask you if you will tell me the story of your life after you became
Randall Batterly’s wife.”
Haidee lifted her head at my request and straightened her shoulders with
an indrawn spasmodic breath. “I have always intended to tell you my
story, some day,” she answered. Lines of pain etched themselves upon
her brow.
“I think if you will tell me you will not regret it,” I replied.
“I have always intended to tell you,” she repeated. Her voice shook but
she lifted brave eyes to mine, and began her story.
“I married Randall Batterly eight years ago, when I was eighteen, soon
after my father died. He took me to Alaska, and—and Baby was born
there. When my little one was two years old, I had a very severe attack
of pneumonia. While I was still ill Mr. Batterly was obliged to make a
trip to Seattle, and it was decided that Baby was to go with him, and be
left with my mother there until I was stronger,—I think the good nurse I
had scarcely expected me to recover. Mr. Batterly had always been a
drinking man, though I was unaware of this when I married him. On the
steamer he drank so heavily that he was in his stateroom in a drunken
stupor most of the time, he afterwards confessed. Then—there was a
storm and a collision in the night—and the ship Mr. Batterly was on went
down off Cape Flattery. Mr. Batterly was rescued by a man who shared
his stateroom—a man he had known for years. But my little boy—my
Baby—was never seen again.”
In the silence that followed, Haidee shuddered and closed her eyes,
biting her lips that were writhing and gray. After a short interval she
went on in a low, strained tone:
“Mr. Batterly and I parted soon after. My mother died that summer and I
went to Paris to study art. While in Paris last winter, in a Seattle paper, I
read of Mr. Batterly’s death at Nome. His name was probably confused
with that of his partner. I did not know he had a partner. This spring I
returned to America, and with a sudden longing for the West I came out
to visit Janet Jones in Spokane. It was then I was obsessed with the
desire to paint this beautiful river country. Janet Jones aided and abetted
me. I purchased a riding horse and went to board on a ranch near
Kingman. It was deadly. When I walked into your workshop I had ridden
all day, fully determined to find a habitation of my own.”
I had glanced at Haidee once or twice to find that her eyes were still
closed. But now, as she finished, she opened them wide, and at the look
of misery I saw in them I cried out quickly:
“Don’t tell me any more—please—please—”
“There is nothing more to tell,” she answered dully.
“Thank you for your confidence. Before I told you all I have to tell I
thought it best to ask it of you.”
“You have something to tell me? For you things are righting—you have
found your boy! For me everything seems wrong in the world—
everything! But now—may I see Joey, please, before long?”
“Mrs. Batterly,” I asked, “may I tell you Joey’s short history?”
At my abrupt tone she turned her eyes to mine, wonderingly. “Surely,”
she replied.
“It is a pitifully meagre one. I found him sobbing on the doorstep of a
humble cabin, one night, four years ago last June. I took him in my arms
and entered the place, to find within a dying woman. She told me that the
child was a waif, picked up on the beach after a storm on Puget Sound,
by her brother, who was a fisherman, a year before. Her brother had died
six months previous and she had taken the child. The woman passed
away that night, and I carried the child home. Mrs. Batterly, your
husband gleaned this story from Wanza. He took Joey and secreted him
in a cabin, thinking the lad his child and yours—”
Haidee broke in on my recital with a gasping cry: “My child—mine?”
“Mrs. Batterly, was there a mark on your baby’s chest—a mark you
could identify him by?”
“Yes, yes!—a bright red mark—oh, not large—the size of a quarter—just
over his heart.”
“Joey has such a mark, though it is a mark considerably larger than a
quarter—and it is higher than his heart.”
A doubt that I was ashamed of stirred my breast, seeing the eagerness on
the face before me. A doubt that returned later during forlorn hard days
to haunt me. I said to myself that I knew not even on what shore of the
great Sound Joey was discovered. But Haidee was speaking impetuously:
“He has grown—the mark has grown too, and is higher up! I have a scar
on my forehead almost hidden by my hair that was much lower down
when I was a child.” She rose, her face working, her whole slight figure
quivering. “Oh, Mr. Dale, give me my child!”
I went to the door and gave my whistle and Joey responded. Haidee took
him in her arms, and he told his story to her much as he had told it to me.
But when he finished, he looked up in her face questioningly:
“I won’t have to leave Mr. David, will I?” he queried. “He’s my only
really, truly daddy. He’d be terrible lonesome without me. Why, I most
guess he couldn’t get along without me, Bell Brandon!”
“Dear, dear little boy, don’t you understand? You have a mother, now.”
Haidee’s arms held him close. Her cheek rested against his. Looking at
her I hated myself for the pang I felt.
And so my little lad went out of my keeping. I left him with Haidee and
went back to take up my niggardly existence at Cedar Dale.
Anxious days ensued. My heart was heavy with thoughts of Wanza, I
could not eat nor sleep. And every day Griffith Lyttle and I consulted
together, and held wearing conclaves in the office of Wanza’s attorney.
And someway I found myself distrait and unnatural in Haidee’s presence
and consumed with bitter melancholy when alone.
What had come over me? When I was with Haidee all my speech was of
Wanza. When I was alone all my thoughts were of her. Haidee was free
—but I realized this but dimly. The thought of Wanza’s position was
paramount. In the long night vigils I saw her face. I recalled the look I
had surprised on it once—the secret never intended for my reading—and
my compassion and wonder overpowered me. That Wanza should care
for me!—I felt like falling on my knees in humbleness.
My loneliness was intense. I began to realize that Joey had gone out of
my life—that his place was henceforth not with me—never with me
again.
The love of a man for a small boy is composed of various ingredients, it
has spice in it, and tenderness, and pride, and hope, and fellowship—and
a lilt of melody goes through it that lightens the most rigid days of
discipline. So when the small boy goes out of the home, the man is bereft
of joy and inspiration and companionship. At first I went daily to Hidden
Lake, and Joey came daily to Cedar Dale. But one day when Joey was
begging me to make him a bow-gun I surprised a wistful gleam in
Haidee’s soft eyes. She drew the lad into her arms.
“Mother will buy you a wonderful gun,” she promised.
“But I’d rather have Mr. David make it, Bell Brandon. I guess women
don’t know what boys like—just.”
The hurt look in the purple-black eyes went to my heart. After that I
went not so often to Hidden Lake.
I took to using Joey’s room as a sort of study. I fitted up a desk near the
window, and here I wrote on my novel, and wrought at wood carving for
the Christmas trade. Finding me here one day carving a frame for an old
photograph of Wanza, Haidee looked at me oddly, turned swiftly and
went from the room, while Joey stared eagerly, and whispered:
“Oh, Mr. David, some day I’m coming back to stay in my dear old room.
Tain’t nice at Bell Brandon’s for a boy. They’s a white spread on the bed,
and blue ribbons to tie back the curtains. And when the coyotes holler
Bell Brandon’s frightened too.”
Later on the porch at parting, Haidee said to me:
“Have you worked long on the frame you are carving for Wanza’s
picture?”
“Since—oh, I began it about the time Joey was lost,” I answered.
She looked at me curiously.
“Wanza is very lovely in that picture.”
“She is. She is growing more beautiful every day,” I answered
thoughtfully; “her soul shines in her face. I realize each time I see her
how her character is rounding—how sturdy and fine she is in her
trouble.”
After Haidee had gone I recalled the look she had flung at me as she
turned and went down the steps, saying:
“Wanza is very fortunate to have you for a friend, very fortunate indeed.”
I asked myself what her look had meant.
Another week passed. I finished my novel. And one day soon after I rode
to Roselake, expressed the manuscript to a publishing firm, and rode
homeward feeling that my affairs were on the knees of the gods.
Not far from Cedar Dale I left the road and took the trail that led through
the woods. In the woods I dismounted and went forward slowly, my
horse’s bridle on my arm. It was a gray day, lightened by a yellow haze. I
was enraptured with the peculiar light that came through the trees. The
foliage about me was copper and flame. Presently I heard voices, and
looking through the trees I saw Haidee and Joey. They were kneeling in a
little open space, gathering pine cones. Haidee was bareheaded and her
sleeves were rolled back, exposing her round, white arms. Her figure was
lithe and supple as she knelt there, her drooping face full of witchery and
charm.
I had an opportunity to observe Joey well. His face was thinner, his
carriage not so gallant as formerly. There was less buoyancy in his voice.
Something sprightly was missing in his whole aspect,—a certain
confidence and dare. He was not the Cedar Dale elf I had known. What
had changed him so?
I went forward and Joey cried out and hurled himself into my arms.
Haidee stood up and drew the lad to her with a nervous motion.
“Joey,” I said, “run away and see what Jingles is barking at so furiously.
A fat rabbit has just escaped him.”
Joey bounded away shrieking with excitement. I studied Haidee
deliberately as her eyes followed the childish figure. Her eyes were
brooding and solemn and sweet as she watched, but there was a shadow
on her brow.
“Too bad,” I said speaking out my thought, “for Joey’s mother to be
jealous of me.”
“Do you think that of me?” she faltered.
“He is all yours—no one on the face of the earth has the slightest claim
on him excepting yourself.”
Our eyes met; hers were startled yet defiant; and I am afraid mine were a
trifle accusing.
“Do not speak to me like this—do not dare!” Then suddenly she
softened. “But you are right—perhaps. When I think of the days and
months you had him and I was bereft—when I think how much you
mean to him—more than I mean—oh, it hurts! I am a wretch.”
“No, no,” I said hastily. “I did not understand, that is all.”
“You have not understood—and it has altered your manner to me, that is
it, is it not? You have thought me weak, and selfish, and ungrateful. Well,
I am not ungrateful; but I have been selfish. I have thought not enough of
you and Joey. But now I have confessed, and I shall be more
considerate.” Her hand came out to me. “Let us shake hands.” Tears
were in her eyes.
I took her hand with shame and contrition. I reached home utterly
miserable. Had Haidee changed or had I changed? What had come over
us? The spontaneity and warmth had seeped from our friendship. There
seemed to be a shadow between us that each was futile to lift.
I said to myself that when I heard from my novel—if the word was
favorable—I should go to her—I could at least tell her of my hopes for
the future—I could lay my love at her feet. All should be made plain; the
cloud should be dispersed.
And so the weeks went past.
 CHAPTER XXIII
WHEN CHRISTMAS CAME
ONE day close on to Christmas, Wanza was tried for the murder of
Randall Batterly, and after a record-breaking trial that lasted but five
hours, acquitted. The verdict said that Randall Batterly was killed by the
accidental discharge of a revolver dropped by his own hand.
In the twilight of that strange day I drove Wanza to her home, where old
Grif Lyttle awaited her. It was a gray twilight, the snow was drifted into
gleaming heaps on either side of the road, the river crawled darkly along
between its fleecy banks. We found no words to say at first, but when I
heard a sob in Wanza’s throat I turned and put my arm across her
shoulders.
“There, there, Wanza!” I whispered, soothingly.
She wept quietly. Presently she said, between smiles and tears:
“It will soon be Christmas. I will try to give father a good Christmas, Mr.
Dale.”
“There, there, Wanza,” I said, again.
She drew away, and with both hands pushed back the hood that she had
drawn over her face on leaving the jail.
“Mrs. Batterly wants to send me away, soon after Christmas—away back
East to school—where I can forget,” she faltered.
Her blue eyes widened to great round wells of misery, the tears rained
down her altered cheeks.
“You will forget,” I soothed her; “it was an accident, my dear.”
“Oh, but Mr. Dale, I felt that I could kill him—for being so disrespectful
to me—for speaking so bold—for kissing me! I had murder in my heart!
I remember one night in the woods when we were gipsying—do you
mind it, Mr. Dale?—you took my hands, and I thought you was going to
kiss me, you looked at me so long, but you didn’t—you respected me too
much! Why if you had ’a kissed me—not loving me—Mr. Dale, it
would’a killed me. And I think I could almost ’a killed you.”
I looked into her face, and suddenly I was back again in the wind-stirred
forest with the black elf-locks of a gipsy wench brushing my lips, her
hands held close, her eyes, burningly blue, lifted to mine in the firelight.
I heard her voice whispering: “If I was a gipsy, and you was a gipsy
things would be different.” I recalled the words of the song I had sung:
“Marna of the wind’s will,
Daughter of the sea—”
I sighed. Marna of the wind’s will, indeed!
This conversation left a sore spot in my heart. I was dejected and
miserable for days. The day before Christmas arrived and late in the
afternoon I rode into Roselake. I purchased some bolts for a sled I was
making for Joey, got my mail, and returned home at dusk.
I built a fire at once in the fireplace in the front room, and went over my
mail eagerly by the light of my green-shaded lamp. One envelope bore
the New York postmark, and I opened it with nervous fingers. I read the
communication it contained, and sat, a warm, surging joy transfusing my
whole being. The publishing firm in New York had accepted my novel
for publication, and the terms mentioned were generous beyond my
wildest visionings.
There was another communication that I read over and over; and as I
read I knew that I was free at last—yes, free forever—free to ask any
woman in the world to be my wife; I knew that the search light of justice
could be turned on a folded page of my past that had long been hidden,
and that there would be no tarnish on the page. For the letter said that my
poor old father was dead, and in dying had confessed to a forgery
committed eight years ago—a crime which his son had tacitly admitted
himself to be guilty of when he had stolen away under cover of the night
and disappeared, rather than face an investigation.
The daily papers had blazoned abroad the shooting of Randall Batterly,
and the subsequent trial of Wanza Lyttle, and my name had appeared in
the account, the writer who was my father’s lawyer explained. A letter to
the postmaster at Roselake had resulted in further establishing my
identity.
The writer had the honor to inform me that my father had left a snug
little fortune—the result of some recent fortunate mining ventures—that
would accrue to me, and he begged me to come back to my southern
home and take my rightful place among the people. I shook my head at