TGFM Is Still In Her Saddle
But since she and her witless companion are continually running into civilization, they realize they can't have this state of affairs:
"Not goin' to be married, dearie? Now that's too bad. Ain't he any kind of relation to you? Not an uncle nor cousin nor nothin'?"
"No."
"Then how be's you travellin' lone with him? It don't seem just right. You's a sweet, good girl; an' he's a fine man. But harm's come to more'n one. Where'd you take up with each other? Be he a neighbor? He looks like a man from way off, not hereabouts. You sure he ain't deceivin' you, dearie?"
Yes. They are unwed, and unengaged, and unfamily, and therefore they cannot be travelling together without a chaperone. Horses? Don't count.
"We were both lost on the prairie in the night; and he's from the East, and got lost from his party of hunters. He had nothing to eat, but I had; so I gave him some. Then he saved my life when a snake almost stung me. He's been good to me."
The woman looked relieved.
"And where you goin', dearie, all 'lone? What your folks thinkin' 'bout to let you go 'lone this way?"
In fact, the state of affairs will stress and worry her hosts and make them less willing to help her out or associate with her. In short: DOOM. So the woman offers to let her stay on and help around the place and maybe marry some kind rancher.
Had this refuge been offered the girl during her first flight in the wilderness, with what joy and thankfulness she would have accepted! Now it suddenly seemed a great impossibility for her to stay. She must go on. She had a pleasant ride before her, and delightful companionship; and she was going to school. The world was wide, and she had entered it. She had no mind to pause thus on the threshold, and never see further than Montana. Moreover, the closing words of the woman did not please her.
Woah! Proto-Belle! She wants more than this provincial life and she's going to go get it.
"I cannot stay," she said decidedly. "I'm going to school. And I do not want a man. I have just run away from a man, a dreadful one. I am going to school in the East. I have some relations there, and perhaps I can find them."
"You don't say so!" said the woman, looking disappointed. She had taken a great fancy to the sweet young face. "Well, dearie, why not stay here a little while, and write to your folks, and then go on with some one who is going your way? I don't like to see you go off with that man. It ain't the proper thing. He knows it himself. I'm afraid he's deceivin' you. I can see by his clo'es he's one of the fine young fellows that does as they please. He won't think any good of you if you keep travellin' 'lone with him. It's all well 'nough when you get lost, an' he was nice to help you out and save you from snakes; but he knows he ain't no business travellin' 'lone with you, you pretty little creature!"
So the woman tries again to get TGFM to stop with her when they leave, the guy starts telling everyone she's his sister since she's like his sister to care for, or something, and she worries that he doesn't respect her and that's why he travels with her. So they go on for a while together in awkward new thoughts until they pause at civilization again and A TELEGRAM interrupts.
"Your mother seriously ill. Wants you immediately. Will send your baggage on morning train. Have wired you are coming."
So now our chucklesome hero must leave, which is frankly just as well because he is not likely to fall into a gopher hole or some other calamity while he is on a train, and TGFM must go it alone. She also thinks the girl whose company he left must love him again by now. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I don't see why she sees it like that unless she wants to be fonder of him too.
But the girl stiffened in her seat. She knew it was her opportunity to show that she was worthy of his honor and respect.
"I cannot go with you," she said very quietly.
Those villains may be upon us at any minute. In fact, it is a good thing for us to board the train and get out of their miserable country as fast as steam can carry us. I am sorry you must part with your horse, for I know you are attached to it; but perhaps we can arrange to sell it to some one who will let us redeem it when we send the money out. You see I have not money enough with me to buy you a ticket. I couldn't get home myself if I hadn't my return ticket with me in my pocket. But surely the sale of both horses will bring enough to pay your way."
His sweaty, crumpled, horsey-scented return ticket is in his pocket. Hey, where've they been carrying the fish all this while? Did they eat the fish without GLH letting us know about it, or did the fish just explode in the midday heat or something?
"I cannot travel alone with you. It is not your custom where you come from. The woman on the ranch told me. She said you knew girls did not do that, and that you did not respect me for going alone with you. She said it was not right, and that you knew it."
He looked at her impatient, angry, half ashamed that she should face him with these words.
Never mind that their partnership has been (sort of) working, that she is in danger, that he offers definite escape to a whole new region, and that she has nothing to keep her and nothing to look forward to in the area; she is secretly a lady in frontier clothing, and social convention is all.
"But you must," said the girl, "and I mustn't. If you talk that way, I'll run away from you. I've run away from one man, and I guess I can from another. Besides, you're forgetting the lady."
"What lady?"
"Your lady. The lady who rides in a carriage without horses."
"Hang the lady!" he said inelegantly.
God I love this book.
"Isn't that enough? What are you made of, anyway, to sit there when there's so much to be done, and those villains on our track, and insist that you won't be saved?' Respect you! Why, a lion in the wilderness would have to respect you. You're made of iron and steel and precious stones. You've the courage of a-a-I was going to say a man but I mean an angel. You're pure as snow, and true as the heavenly blue, and firm as a rock; and, if I had never respected you before, I would have to now. I respect, I honor, I-I-I-pray for you!" he finished fiercely.
And hurrah, she didn't get called a "white woman." That would have annoyed me.
He turned, still with that desperate, half-frantic look in his face, and accosted two men who stood at the other end of the platform. They were not in particular need of a horse at present; but they were always ready to look at a bargain, and they walked speculatively down the uneven boards of the platform with him to where his horse stood, and inspected it.
The girl watched the whole proceeding with eyes that saw not but into the future. She put in a word about the worth of the saddle once when she saw it was going lower than it should. Three other men gathered about before the bargain was concluded,
I am an unmerciful critic of this man, and he couldn't look more hapless if GLH had him bitten and injured by a prairie dog. But he has money and must be succesful at something. So my ears perk at this! Are we going to see that he is in fact a magnificant salesman?!
and the horse and its equipments sold for about half its value.
No.
He had barely time to divest himself of his powder-horn, and a few little things that might be helpful to the girl in her journey, before the train was halting at the station. Then he took from his pocket the money that had been paid him for his horse; and, selecting a five-dollar bill for himself, he wrapped the rest in an envelope bearing his own name and address. The envelope was one addressed by the lady at home. It had contained some gracefully worded refusal of a request. But he did not notice now what envelope he gave her.
He has a powder-horn. He doesn't know how to shoot and he's carrying a pair of muzzleloading pistols. That means he probably doesn't just know how to shoot, he doesn't know how to load his guns. Also he just passed an old rejection letter on to his new flame.
"You haven't told me your name!" he gasped. "Tell me quick!"
She caught her breath.
"Elizabeth!" she answered, and waved him from her.
Nice going, Bess, don't even give him your last name? I think at this point she's definitely just trying to heave him off.
The conductor of the train was shouting to him, and two men shoved him toward the platform. He swung himself aboard with the accustomed ease of a man who has travelled; but he stood on the platform, and shouted, "Where are you going?" as the train swung noisily off.
So he departs this stretch of novel as he entered: clueless.
What a fool he had been! There were questions he might have asked, and plans they might have made, all those beautiful days and those moon-silvered nights. If any other man had done the same, he would have thought him lacking mentally. But here he had maundered on, and never found out the all-important things about her. Yet how did he know then how important they were to be?
He threw his head back and wailed "HELLO!" like a coyote, or perhaps a troop of coyotes sneaking up on a man on the plains. Let's leave him to that and see how TGFM is getting on.
Not three minutes elapsed after she had passed the crossing of the trails before the four men rode across from the other direction, and, pausing, called to one another, looking this way and that:
She's three minutes ahead of the guys who rode maybe sixteen hours while getting drunk. They are fresh, on their horses, hydrated, and holding a conversation. It's like GLH just runs them behind the paragraphs in a taxicab.
But the horse must rest if she did not, for he was her only dependence now. So she sat her down in the shade of a tree, and tried to eat some dinner. The tears came again as she opened the pack which the man's strong hands had bound together for her.
Oh, she found the fish.
How little she had thought at breakfast-time that she would eat the next meal alone!
So she thinks about how it was nice to hear about the east and dream about the world and now she is lonely and alone. And now we learn, if not her name, his:
George Trescott Benedict
God help us. And now WAIT WAIT MY PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED. With no church, no man, and no rattlesnakes, she considers the rest of her papers, including those ones I've been wondering about for chapters.
The largest paper she could not understand. It was something about a mine. There were a great many "herebys" and "whereases" and "agreements" in it. She put it back into the wrapper as of little account, probably something belonging to her father, which her mother had treasured for old time's sake.
Then came a paper which related to the claim where their little log home had stood, and upon the extreme edge of which the graves were. That, too, she laid reverently within its wrapper.
She's an heiress. Okay, she's the heiress of a little log cabin, but that mine-thing? Gonna be important, I will bet my boots. She also finds her grandmother's address, which by the beneficence of heaven is in the same town as Trescott Benewhoever's and will doubtless assist in the inevitable reunion. If there is not a deafening "HELLO!" I don't know what I'm reading. Well! The plot pops like popcorn! Onward! Let us follow her as she goes east, along trails and traintracks, stopping at houses at night and renting rooms, and see where she takes herself!
Into the outskirts of Chicago she rode undaunted, her head erect, with the carriage of a queen. She had passed Indians and cowboys in her journeying; why should she mind Chicago? Miles and miles of houses and people.
She just rode from Montana to Chicago. No stop-overs, no pauses, no storms, no winters, no ferries, no bridges, nothing. I told you this bit would be more interesting than his! She just made it on forty dollars and her guns and her horse. No wonder she has no conception what a horseless carriage is! She was right about one thing: like hell does she need his help.
But she is about to face social failure, as she finds a school for girls and inquires if she can obtain classes:
"It is impossible," she said. "The yearly tuition here is five hundred dollars. Besides, we do not take girls of your class. This is a finishing school for young ladies. You will have to inquire further," and the woman swept away to laugh with her colleagues over the queer character, the new kind of tramp, she had just been called to interview. The maid came pertly forward, and said that Elizabeth could not longer stand where she was.
So she is crushed. After such hostility to her dreams after she just crossed a bunch of states in an unknown time, what devilry has this city left to throw in her face?
A woman, gaudily bedecked in soiled finery, her face giving evidence of the frequent use of rouge and powder, watched her, and followed, pondering. At last she called, "My dear, my dear, wait a minute." She had to speak several times before Elizabeth saw that she was talking to her. Then the horse was halted by the sidewalk.
"My dear," said the woman, "you look tired and disappointed. Don't you want to come home with me for a little while, and rest?"
Uh oh. Gaudy but soiled finery? Actual, visible makeup? What witch or hellion is this?!
"My dear," said the woman, "you look tired and disappointed. Don't you want to come home with me for a little while, and rest?"
"Thank you," said Elizabeth, "but I am afraid I must go on. I only stop on Sundays."
"But just come home with me for a little while," coaxed the wheedling tones. "You look so tired, and I've some girls of my own. I know you would enjoy resting and talking with them."
The kindness in her tones touched the weary girl. Her pride had been stung to the quick by the haughty woman in the school. This woman would soothe her with kindness.
Oh noes! Can we be sure of her bad intentions? Of course we can, GLH is anti-makeup. So the woman lies and crushes her dreams some more, tipping us off if not TGFM, and draws her in. TGFM doesn't quite trust her, although she listens to her kind words more than her own instincts:
"Poor child!" said the woman glibly. "Come right home with me, and I'll take care of you. I know a nice way you can earn your living, and then you can study if you like. But you're quite big to go to school. It seems to me you could have a good time without that. You are a very pretty girl; do you know it? You only need pretty clothes to make you a beauty. If you come with me, I will let you earn some beautiful new clothes."
So Elizabeth falls for it:
She tied her horse in front of the door, and went in with the woman. The woman told her to sit down a minute until she called the lady of the house, who would tell her more about the school. There were a number of pretty girls in the room, and they made very free to speak to her. They twitted her about her clothes, and in a way reminded Elizabeth of the girls in the school she had just interviewed.
Suddenly she spoke up to the group. An idea had occurred to her. This was the school, and the woman had not liked to say so until she spoke to the teacher about her.
"Is this a school?" she asked shyly.
Her question was met with a shout of derisive laughter.
"School!" cried the boldest, prettiest one. "School for scandal! School for morals!"
Oh noes again!! What can this be?? We're gonna have to figure it out by inference alone:
There was one, a thin, pale girl with dark circles under her eyes, a sad droop to her mouth, and bright scarlet spots in her cheeks. She came over to Elizabeth, and whispered something to her. Elizabeth started forward, unspeakable horror in her face.
She fled to the door where she had come in, but found it fastened. Then she turned as if she had been brought to bay by a pack of lions.
Not a problem, she could probably hop across a state if you tied her feet together.
"Open this door!" she commanded. "Let me out of here at once."
The pale girl started to do so, but the pretty one held her back. "No, Nellie; Madam will be angry with us all if you open that door." Then she turned to Elizabeth, and said:
"Whoever enters that door never goes out again. You are nicely caught, my dear."
I have no idea how kidnapping a girl for prostitution used to work, especially since they are in civilization and this is the suburbs. I'm pretty sure it wasn't like a roach motel, but I doubt GLH has an honest idea either, so we'll just take it on the face of it. How, how will she react?
There was a sting of bitterness and self-pity in the taunt at the end of the words. Elizabeth felt it, as she seized her pistol from her belt, and pointed it at the astonished group. They were not accustomed to girls with pistols. "Open that door, or I will shoot you all!" she cried.
In the most entertaining way possible, thank you! And if they have revolving pistols, they didn't have muzzleloaders, and I truly have no idea what that powder-horn was used for unless he carried snuff in it. But enough of our lingering whiffs of useless, TGFM is acting now. And how will she leave the house of evil?
Then, as she heard some one descending the stairs, she rushed again into the room where she remembered the windows were open. They were guarded by wire screens; but she caught up a chair, and dashed it through one, plunging out into the street in spite of detaining hands that reached for her, hands much hindered by the gleam of the pistol and the fear that it might go off in their midst.
By hucking a goddamn chair through the window and hopping out waving her pistols. And how will she leave Chicago?
It took but an instant to wrench the bridle from its fastening and mount her horse; then she rode forward through the city at a pace that only millionaires and automobiles are allowed to take. She met and passed her first automobile without a quiver. Her eyes were dilated, her lips set; angry, frightened tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she urged her poor horse forward until a policeman here and there thought it his duty to make a feeble effort to detain her. But nothing impeded her way. She fled through a maze of wagons, carriages, automobiles, and trolley-cars, until she passed the whirl of the great city, and at last was free again and out in the open country.
She'll charge right through it in about five minutes. She came into the suburbs on the west, she went out through the suburbs on the east, and she's whipped right by cars and mounted police alike. She's probably split buildings on the way through. So she finds a cute little rose-covered cottage and settles down and cries on the porch of the nice lady who owns it.
The old lady was horrified, too. She had heard more than the girl of licensed evil; but she had read it in the paper as she had read about the evils of the slave-traffic in Africa, and it had never really seemed true to her. Now she lifted up her hands in horror, and looked at the beautiful girl before her with something akin to awe that she had been in one of those dens of iniquity and escaped. Over and over she made the girl tell what was said, and how it looked, and how she pointed her pistol, and how she got out; and then she exclaimed in wonder, and called her escape a miracle.
Finley who? And now it's time for another GLH touch:
"I had some boarders last summer," she explained, "and, when they went away, they left these things and said I might put them into the home-mission box. But I was sick when they sent it off this winter; and, if you ain't a home mission, then I never saw one. You put 'em on. I guess they'll fit. They may be a mite large, but she was about your size. I guess your clothes are about wore out; so you jest leave 'em here fer the next one, and use these. There's a couple of extra shirt-waists you can put in a bundle for a change. I guess folks won't dare fool with you if you have some clean, nice clothes on."
MAKEOVER TIME!
Bathed and clothed in clean, sweet garments, with a white shirt-waist and a dark-blue serge skirt and coat, Elizabeth looked a different girl. She surveyed herself in the little glass over the box-washstand and wondered. All at once vanity was born within her, and an ambition to be always thus clothed, with a horrible remembrance of the woman of the day before, who had promised to show her how to earn some pretty clothes. It flashed across her mind that pretty clothes might be a snare. Perhaps they had been to those girls she had seen in that house.
Golly, all this ingrained morality in her is really coming out with her new challenges.
With much good advice and kindly blessings from the old lady, Elizabeth fared forth upon her journey once more, sadly wise in the wisdom of the world, and less sweetly credulous than she had been, but better fitted to fight her way.
I don't know how she's better fitted now, considering Chicago didn't stand a chance. Its great fire was probably caused by the sparks flying off her horses' hooves.
The story of her journey from Chicago to Philadelphia would fill a volume if it were written, but it might pall upon the reader from the very variety of its experiences. It was made slowly and painfully
She still gets there faster than you or I would.
The horse went lame, and had to be watched over and petted, and finally, by the advice of a kindly farmer, taken to a veterinary surgeon, who doctored him for a week before he finally said it was safe to let him hobble on again. After that the girl was more careful of the horse. If he should die, what would she do?
One dismal morning, late in November, Elizabeth, wearing the old overcoat to keep her from freezing, rode into Philadelphia.
She just whipped across over half the nation from summertime to November. Alone. What have YOU done this past year?
Mrs. Brady was washing when the knock sounded through the house. She was a broad woman, with a face on which the cares and sorrows of the years had left a not too heavy impress. She still enjoyed life, oven though a good part of it was spent at the wash-tub, washing other people's fine clothes. She had some fine ones of her own up-stairs in her clothes-press; and, when she went out, it was in shiny satin, with a bonnet bobbing with jet and a red rose, though of late years, strictly speaking, the bonnet had become a hat again, and Mrs. Brady was in style with the other old ladies.
Have I mentioned GLH loves clothes and fashion and respects hard-working people?
But the young person in the rusty overcoat, with the dark-blue serge Eton jacket under it, which might have come from Wanamaker's two years ago, who yet wore a leather belt with gleaming pistols under the Eton jacket, was a new species. Mrs. Brady was taken off her guard; else Elizabeth might have found entrance to her grandmother's home as difficult as she had found entrance to the finishing school of Madame Janeway.
I guess he must have given her his coat. I wasn't paying a lot of attention, honestly. So TGFM hands over the letter and introduces herself. At first it doesn't go over well. At all.
"Well, who are you?" said the uncordial grandmother, still puzzled. "You ain't Bessie, me Bessie. Fer one thing, you're 'bout as young as she was when she went off 'n' got married, against me 'dvice, to that drunken, lazy dude." Her brow was lowering, and she proceeded to finish her letter.
So TGFM is forced to speak for the man who provided a lot of her amazing genes. And her color, since she's super-tan.
"I've been riding a long way in the wind and sun and rain."
"Fer the land sakes!" as she looked through the window to the street. "Not on a horse?"
"Yes."
"H'm! What was your ma thinkin' about to let you do that?"
"My mother is dead. There was no one left to care what I did. I had to come. There were dreadful people out there, and I was afraid."
Oh, TGFM, knock it off. You are legend. TGFM is offered food, but insists on taking care of her horse first; they stash it in the backyard, while her grandmother offers to feed it mashed potatoes. You love this book. I love this book. TGFM is introduced to Lizzie, who is her grandmother's other granddaughter, and they talk about things GLH wants to talk about. Which as you know by now is Christian Endeavor, where to go to church, what church is like, and:
"Say, haven't you got any other clothes with you at all? I'd take you down with me in the morning if you was fixed up."