Battle Ground Read online

  II

  BETTY DREAMS BY THE FIRE

  Betty, lying back in the deep old carriage as it rolled through the storm,felt a glow at her heart as if a lamp were burning there, shut in from thenight. Above the wind and the groaning of the wheels, she heard Hoseacalling to the horses, but the sound reached her through muffled ears.

  "Git along dar!" cried Hosea, with sudden spirit, "dar ain' no oats disside er home, en dar ain' no co'n, nurr. Git along dar! 'Tain' no usea-mincin'. Git along dar!"

  The snow beat softly on the windows, and the Governor's profile wasrelieved, fine and straight, against the frosted glass. "Are you asleep,daughter?" he asked, turning to where the girl lay in her dark corner.

  "Asleep!" She came back with a start, and caught his hand above the robe inher demonstrative way. "Why, who can sleep on Christmas Eve? there's toomuch to do, isn't there, mamma? Twenty stockings to fill and I don't knowhow many bundles to tie up. Oh, no, I shan't sleep tonight."

  "We might get up early to-morrow and do them," suggested Virginia, noddingin her pink hood.

  "You, at least, must go to bed, dear," insisted Mrs. Ambler. "Betty and Iwill fix the things."

  "Indeed, you shall go to bed, mamma," said Betty, sternly. "Papa and Ishall make Christmas this year. You'll help me, won't you, papa?"

  "Well, my dear, I don't see how I can help myself," returned the Governor;"I wasn't born to be the father of a Betty for nothing."

  "Get along dar!" sang out Hosea again. "'Tain' no use a-mincin', gemmun.Dar ain' no fiddlin' roun'. Git along dar!"

  Miss Lydia had fallen asleep, with her head on her breast, but the soundaroused her, and she opened her eyes and sat up very straight.

  "Why, I declare I'd almost dropped off," she said. "Are we nearly there,Peyton?"

  "I think so," replied the Governor, "but the snow's so thick I can't see;"he opened the window and put out his head. "Are we nearly there, Hosea?"

  "We des done pas' de clump er cedars, suh," yelled Hosea through the storm."I'ud a knowd 'em ef dey'd come a-struttin' down de road--dey cyarn foolme. Den we got ter pas' de wil' cher'y and de gap in de fence, en dar weare."

  "Yes, we're nearly there," said the Governor, as he drew in his head, andMiss Lydia slept again until the carriage turned into the drive and stoppedbefore the portico.

  Uncle Shadrach, in the open doorway, was grinning with delight. "Ef'n desnow had er kep' you, dar 'ouldn't a been no Christmas for de res' er us,"he declared.

  "Oh, the snow couldn't keep us, Shadrach," returned the Governor, as hegave him his overcoat, and set himself to unfastening his wife's wraps. "Wewere too anxious to get home. There, Julia, you go to bed, and leave Bettyand myself to manage things. Don't say I can't do it. I tell you I've beenGovernor of Virginia, and I'll not be daunted by an empty stocking. Now goaway, and you, too, Virginia--you're as sleepy as a kitten. Miss Lydia,shall I take Mrs. Lightfoot's mixture to Miss Pussy, or will you?"

  Miss Lydia took the pitcher, and Betty put her arm about her mother and ledher upstairs, holding her hand and kissing it as she went. She was alwayslavish with little ways of love, but to-night she felt tenderer thanever--she felt that she should like to take the world in her arms and holdit to her bosom. "Dearest, sweetest," she said, and her voice was full andtremulous, though still with its crisp brightness of tone. It was as if shecaressed with her whole being, with those hidden possibilities of passionwhich troubled her yet, only as the vibration of strong music, making herjoy pensive and her sadness sweet. She felt that she was walking in apleasant and vivid dream; she was happy, she could not tell why; nor couldshe tell why she was sorrowful.

  In Mrs. Ambler's room they found Mammy Riah, awaiting her mistress'sreturn.

  "Put her to bed, Mammy," she said; "she is all chilled by the drive," andshe gave her mother over to the old negress, and ran down again to thedining room, where the Governor was standing surrounded by the Christmaslitter.

  "Do you expect to straighten out all these things, daughter?" he askedhopelessly.

  "Why, there's hardly anything left to do," was Betty's cheerful assurance."You just sit down at the table and put the nuts into the toes of thosestockings, and I'll count out these print frocks."

  The Governor obediently sat down and went to work. "I am moved to offerthanks that we are not as the beasts that have four legs," he remarkedthoughtfully. "I shouldn't care to fill stockings for quadrupeds, Betty."

  "Why, you goose, there's only one stocking for each child."

  "Ah, but with four feet our expectations might be doubled," suggested theGovernor. "You can't convince me that it isn't a merciful providence, mydear."

  When the stockings were filled and the packages neatly tied up andseparated, Uncle Shadrach came with a hamper, and Betty went out to thekitchen to prepare for the morning gathering of the field hands and theirfamilies. Returning after the work was over, she lingered a moment in thepath to the house, looking far across the white country. The snow hadceased, and a single star was shining, through a rift in the scuddingclouds, straight overhead. From the northwest the wind blew hard, and thefleecy covering on the ground was fast freezing a foot deep in ice. With ashiver she drew her cloak about her and ran indoors and upstairs to whereVirginia lay asleep in the high, white bed.

  In the great brick fireplace the logs had fallen apart, and she softlypushed them together again as she threw on a knot of resinous pine. Theblaze shot up quickly, and blowing out the candle upon the bureau, sheundressed by the firelight, crooning gently as she did so in a voice thatwas lower than the singing flames. With the glow on her bared arms and herhair unbound upon her shoulders, she sat close against the chimney; andwhile Virginia slept in the tester bed, went dreaming out into the night.

  At first her dreams went back into her childhood, and somehow, she knew notwhy, she could not bring back her childhood but Dan came with it. Shefancied herself in all kinds of impossible places, but she had no soonergot safely into them than she looked up and Dan was there before her,standing very still and laughing at her with his eyes. It was the samething even when she was a baby. Her earliest memory was of a May morningwhen they took her out into a field of buttercups, and told her that shemight pluck her arms full if she could, and then, as she stretched out herlittle hands and began to gather very fast, she looked across to where thewaving yellow buttercups stood up against the blue spring sky. That memoryhad always been her own before; but now, when she went back to it, she knewthat all the time she had been gathering buttercups for Dan. And she hadplucked faster and faster only that she might have a bigger bunch for himwhen the gathering was done. She saw herself working bonnetless in thesunshine, her baby face red, her lips breathless, working so hard, she didnot know for whom. Oh, how funny that he should have been somewhere all thetime!

  And again on the day when they gave her her first doll, and she let it falland cried her heart out over its broken pink face. She knew, at last, thatsomewhere in that ugly town Dan had dropped his toy; and it was for thatshe was crying, not for her own poor doll. Yes, all her life she had hadtwo griefs to weep for, and two joys to be glad over. She had been really adouble self from her babyhood up--from her babyhood up! It had been alwaysup, up, up--like a lark that rises to the sun. She had all her life beenrising to the sun, and she was warmed at last.

  Then she asked herself if it were happiness, after all, this newrestlessness of hers. The melancholy of the early spring was there--theroving impulse that comes on April afternoons when the first buds are onthe trees and the air is keen with the smell of the newly turned earth. Shefelt that it was time for the spring to come again; she wanted to walkalone in the woods and to watch the swallows flying from the north. Andagain she wanted only to lie close upon the hearth and to hear the flamesleap up the chimney. One of her selves cried to be up and roaming; theother to turn over on the rug and sleep again.

  But gradually her thoughts returned to him, and she went over, bit by bit,what he had said last evening, asking herself if he had mean
t much at thistime, or little at another. It seemed to her that she found new meaningsnow in things that she had once overlooked. She read words in his eyeswhich he had never spoken; and, one by one, she brought back each sentence,each look, each gesture, holding it up to her remembrance, and laying itaside to give place to the next. Oh, there were so many, so many!

  And then from the past her dreams went groping out into the future,becoming dimmer, and shaping themselves into unreal forms. Scatteredvisions came drifting through her mind,--of herself in romantic adventures,and of Dan--always of Dan--appearing like the prince in the fairy tale, atthe perilous moment. She saw herself on the breast of a great river, borne,while she stretched her hands at a white rose-bush blooming in the clouds,to a cataract which she could not see, though she heard its thunder farahead. She tried to call, but no sound came, for the water filled hermouth. The river went on and on, and the falling of the cataract was in herears, when she felt Dan's arm about her, and saw his eyes laughing at herabove the waters.

  "Betty!" called Virginia, suddenly, rising on her elbow and rubbing hereyes. "Betty, is it morning?"

  Betty awoke with a cry, and stood up in the firelight.

  "Oh, no, not yet," she answered.

  "What are you doing? Aren't you coming to bed?"

  "I--I was just thinking," stammered Betty, twisting her hair into a rope;"yes, I'm coming now," and she crossed the room and climbed into the bedbeside her sister.

  "I believe I fell asleep by the fire," she said, as she turned over.